Job

Chapter 19

  1. 1

    But Job answered:

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    What, will you torment me still? Every word of yours a fresh weight to crush me?

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    How many times is this you have fallen on me, trampled me down without ruth?

  4. 4

    If, unawares, I have committed some fault, it concerns none but myself;

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    not for you to claim authority over me, bring home to me my disgrace!

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    How to make you understand that God has misjudged me, caught me in his toils!

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    If I cry out upon that my wrongs, there is none to hear me, none to take cognisance of my plea;

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    my path hedged in, so that there is no escape, my direction lost, and I benighted.

  9. 9

    By him discredited, discrowned,

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    by him left defenceless on every side, I go my ways; a tree torn up by the roots has more to hope for than I.

  11. 11

    Against me all his anger is aroused; I am that enemy

  12. 12

    against whom he musters all his forces, to ride over me, to beleaguer my dwelling place.

  13. 13

    Sundered am I from my brethren, a stranger to all that knew me,

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    forsaken by my kindred, by my friends forgotten.

  15. 15

    Guests that dwell in my house, ay, and the very serving-women, stare at me, the alien, the unknown;

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    my servants do not come at my call, I must speak them fair;

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    my wife shuns the breath of me, to my own flesh and blood1 I am a suppliant.

  18. 18

    The very innocents2 despise me, jeer at me when my back is turned;

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    no counsellor so trusted but he is weary of me, no friend so loved but he abandons me now.

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    And I so wasted! Skin clinging to bone, save where the lips cover my teeth, is all that is left of me.

  21. 21

    Friends, friends, do you at least have pity, now when God’s hand has fallen on me!

  22. 22

    Would you take part in God’s hue and cry against me, slander me to your hearts’ content?

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    Could but these words of mine be written down in a book,

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    graven with a pen of iron upon tablets of lead, chiselled on hard flint!

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    This at least I know, that one lives on who will vindicate me, rising up from the dust when the last day comes.

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    Once more my skin shall clothe me, and in my flesh I shall have sight of God.

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    I myself, with my own eyes; it will not be something other than myself that sees him. Deep in my heart is this hope reposed.

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    You that would raise the hue and cry, finding matter of complaint against me,

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    should rather take flight yourselves, the sword at your heels; the sword that avenges wrong, proof to you that justice shall be done.