Job 19

Job Answers Bildad

1-6 I Call for Help and No One Bothers Job answered: "How long are you going to keep battering away at me, pounding me with these harangues? Time after time after time you jump all over me. Do you have no conscience, abusing me like this? Even if I have, somehow or other, gotten off the track, what business is that of yours? Why do you insist on putting me down, using my troubles as a stick to beat me? Tell it to God—he's the one behind all this, he's the one who dragged me into this mess.
7-12 "Look at me—I shout 'Murder!' and I'm ignored; I call for help and no one bothers to stop. God threw a barricade across my path—I'm stymied; he turned out all the lights—I'm stuck in the dark. He destroyed my reputation, robbed me of all self-respect. He tore me apart piece by piece—I'm ruined! Then he yanked out hope by the roots. He's angry with me—oh, how he's angry! He treats me like his worst enemy. He has launched a major campaign against me, using every weapon he can think of, coming at me from all sides at once.

I Know That God Lives

13-20 "God alienated my family from me; everyone who knows me avoids me. My relatives and friends have all left; houseguests forget I ever existed. The servant girls treat me like a bum off the street, look at me like they've never seen me before. I call my attendant and he ignores me, ignores me even though I plead with him. My wife can't stand to be around me anymore. I'm repulsive to my family. Even street urchins despise me; when I come out, they taunt and jeer. Everyone I've ever been close to abhors me; my dearest loved ones reject me. I'm nothing but a bag of bones; my life hangs by a thread.
21-22 "Oh, friends, dear friends, take pity on me. God has come down hard on me! Do you have to be hard on me, too? Don't you ever tire of abusing me?
23-27 "If only my words were written in a book— better yet, chiseled in stone! Still, I know that God lives—the One who gives me back my life— and eventually he'll take his stand on earth. And I'll see him—even though I get skinned alive!— see God myself, with my very own eyes. Oh, how I long for that day!
28-29 "If you're thinking, 'How can we get through to him, get him to see that his trouble is all his own fault?' Forget it. Start worrying about yourselves. Worry about your own sins and God's coming judgment, for judgment is most certainly on the way."

Job 19

1 Then Job answered and said,

2 How long will ye vex my soul, And break me in pieces with words?

3 These ten times have ye reproached me: Ye are not ashamed that ye deal hardly with me.

4 And be it indeed that I have erred, Mine error remaineth with myself.

5 If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, And plead against me my reproach;

6 Know now that God hath subverted me in my cause, And hath compassed me with his net.

7 Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry for help, but there is no justice.

8 He hath walled up my way that I cannot pass, And hath set darkness in my paths.

9 He hath stripped me of my glory, And taken the crown from my head.

10 He hath broken me down on every side, and I am gone; And my hope hath he plucked up like a tree.

11 He hath also kindled his wrath against me, And he counteth me unto him as one of his adversaries.

12 His troops come on together, And cast up their way against me, And encamp round about my tent.

13 He hath put my brethren far from me, And mine acquaintance are wholly estranged from me.

14 My kinsfolk have failed, And my familiar friends have forgotten me.

15 They that dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger; I am an alien in their sight.

16 I call unto my servant, and he giveth me no answer, Though I entreat him with my mouth.

17 My breath is strange to my wife, And my supplication to the children of mine own mother.

18 Even young children despise me; If I arise, they speak against me.

19 All my familiar friends abhor me, And they whom I loved are turned against me.

20 My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, And I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.

21 Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; For the hand of God hath touched me.

22 Why do ye persecute me as God, And are not satisfied with my flesh?

23 Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

24 That with an iron pen and lead They were graven in the rock for ever!

25 But as for me I know that my Redeemer liveth, And at last he will stand up upon the earth:

26 And after my skin, even this body, is destroyed, Then without my flesh shall I see God;

27 Whom I, even I, shall see, on my side, And mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger. My heart is consumed within me.

28 If ye say, How we will persecute him! And that the root of the matter is found in me;

29 Be ye afraid of the sword: For wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, That ye may know there is a judgment.