Job 19
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| And Job made answer and said, |
| How long will you make my life bitter, crushing me with words? |
| Ten times now you have made sport of me; it gives you no sense of shame to do me wrong. |
| And, truly, if I have been in error, the effect of my error is only on myself. |
| If you make yourselves great against me, using my punishment as an argument against me, |
| Be certain that it is God who has done me wrong, and has taken me in his net. |
| Truly, I make an outcry against the violent man, but there is no answer: I give a cry for help, but no one takes up my cause. |
| My way is walled up by him so that I may not go by: he has made my roads dark. |
| He has put off my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head. |
| I am broken down by him on every side, and I am gone; my hope is uprooted like a tree. |
| His wrath is burning against me, and I am to him as one of his haters. |
| His armies come on together, they make their road high against me, and put up their tents round mine. |
| He has taken my brothers far away from me; they have seen my fate and have become strange to me. |
| My relations and my near friends have given me up, and those living in my house have put me out of their minds. |
| I am strange to my women-servants, and seem to them as one from another country. |
| At my cry my servant gives me no answer, and I have to make a prayer to him. |
| My breath is strange to my wife, and I am disgusting to the offspring of my mother's body. |
| Even young children have no respect for me; when I get up their backs are turned on me. |
| All the men of my circle keep away from me; and those dear to me are turned against me. |
| My bones are joined to my skin, and I have got away with my flesh in my teeth. |
| Have pity on me, have pity on me, O my friends! for the hand of God is on me. |
| Why are you cruel to me, like God, for ever saying evil against me? |
| If only my words might be recorded! if they might be put in writing in a book! |
| And with an iron pen and lead be cut into the rock for ever! |
| But I am certain that he who will take up my cause is living, and that in time to come he will take his place on the dust; |
| And ... without my flesh I will see God; |
| Whom I will see on my side, and not as one strange to me. My heart is broken with desire. |
| If you say, How cruel we will be to him! because the root of sin is clearly in him: |
| Be in fear of the sword, for the sword is the punishment for such things, so that you may be certain that there is a judge. |
