Job 19

2 “How long will you wear out my soul

and pull me down with words?

3 Only know this: the Lord is the one who has made me like this.

You speak against me;

you press on me and feel no shame in front of me.

4 Yes, it is true, I went astray,

and the straying lodges with me —

to say a word that should not be said;

and my words wander, and never at the right time.

5 But enough — you make yourselves big against me,

and you jump on me with insults.

6 So know that the Lord is the one who has shaken me,

and he has raised his siege wall against me.

7 Look, I laugh at the insult and will not speak;

I will cry out, and there is no judgment anywhere.

8 I am walled in all around and cannot get through;

he has put darkness over my face.

9 He has stripped my glory off me,

and taken the crown off my head.

10 He has torn me apart on every side, and I am gone;

he has cut my hope down like a tree.

11 He has handled me terribly in his anger,

and counted me as an enemy.

12 His raiding parties came at me together along my own roads;

men lying in wait surrounded me.

13 My brothers have stood off from me;

they know strangers better than they know me;

my friends have become merciless.

14 My closest relatives would not own me,

and the ones who knew my name have forgotten me.

15 My neighbors in the house, and my serving women:

I was a foreigner in front of them.

16 I called my servant and he did not answer;

my own mouth was begging him.

17 I pleaded with my wife;

I called for the sons of my concubines, coaxing them.

18 But they have disowned me for good;

every time I get up, they talk against me.

19 The ones who knew me came to detest me;

the very people I had loved rose up against me.

20 My flesh has rotted under my skin,

and my bones are held in my teeth.

21 Pity me, pity me, my friends!

It is the hand of the Lord that has touched me.

22 Why do you hunt me down the way the Lord does,

and never have your fill of my flesh?

23 Who will grant that my words be written down,

that they be set in a book forever,

24 cut with an iron stylus and lead,

or carved into the rocks?

25 For I know that he is everlasting —

the one who is going to release me on the earth —

26 and that he will raise up my skin, which has held out through all this.

For these things were carried through on me by the Lord,

27 things I know along with myself,

things my own eye has seen and no one else’s.

It has all been finished in me, deep inside.

28 And if you say, ‘What will we say in front of him?

We will find the root of the matter in him’ —

29 then be careful yourselves of what is covered over,

for rage will come on the lawless,

and then they will know where their substance is.”