Job 19

1. ¹And Job answereth and saith: --
2. ²Till when do ye afflict my soul, And bruise me with words?
3. ³These ten times ye put me to shame, ye blush not. Ye make yourselves strange to me --
4. ⁴And also -- truly, I have erred, With me doth my error remain.
5. ⁵If, truly, over me ye magnify yourselves, And decide against me my reproach;
6. ⁶Know now, that God turned me upside down, And His net against me hath set round,
7. ⁷Lo, I cry out -- violence, and am not answered, I cry aloud, and there is no judgment.
8. ⁸My way He hedged up, and I pass not over, And on my paths darkness He placeth.
9. ⁹Mine honour from off me He hath stripped, And He turneth the crown from my head.
10. ¹⁰He breaketh me down round about, and I go, And removeth like a tree my hope.
11. ¹¹And He kindleth against me His anger, And reckoneth me to Him as His adversaries.
12. ¹²Come in do His troops together, And they raise up against me their way, And encamp round about my tent.
13. ¹³My brethren from me He hath put far off, And mine acquaintances surely Have been estranged from me.
14. ¹⁴Ceased have my neighbours And my familiar friends have forgotten me,
15. ¹⁵Sojourners of my house and my maids, For a stranger reckon me: An alien I have been in their eyes.
16. ¹⁶To my servant I have called, And he doth not answer, With my mouth I make supplication to him.
17. ¹⁷My spirit is strange to my wife, And my favours to the sons of my `mother's' womb.
18. ¹⁸Also sucklings have despised me, I rise, and they speak against me.
19. ¹⁹Abominate me do all the men of my counsel, And those I have loved, Have been turned against me.
20. ²⁰To my skin and to my flesh Cleaved hath my bone, And I deliver myself with the skin of my teeth.
21. ²¹Pity me, pity me, ye my friends, For the hand of God hath stricken against me.
22. ²²Why do you pursue me as God? And with my flesh are not satisfied?
23. ²³Who doth grant now, That my words may be written? Who doth grant that in a book they may be graven?
24. ²⁴With a pen of iron and lead -- For ever in a rock they may be hewn.
25. ²⁵That -- I have known my Redeemer, The Living and the Last, For the dust he doth rise.
26. ²⁶And after my skin hath compassed this `body', Then from my flesh I see God:
27. ²⁷Whom I -- I see on my side, And mine eyes have beheld, and not a stranger, Consumed have been my reins in my bosom.
28. ²⁸But ye say, `Why do we pursue after him?' And the root of the matter hath been found in me.
29. ²⁹Be ye afraid because of the sword, For furious `are' the punishments of the sword, That ye may know that `there is' a judgment.

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