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Job 19

Job’s Sixth Speech: A Response to Bildad

¹Then Job spoke again:

²“How long will you torture me? How long will you try to crush me with your words?

³You have already insulted me ten times. You should be ashamed of treating me so badly.

⁴Even if I have sinned, that is my concern, not yours.

⁵You think you’re better than I am, using my humiliation as evidence of my sin.

⁶But it is God who has wronged me, capturing me in his net.

⁷“I cry out, ‘Help!’ but no one answers me. I protest, but there is no justice.

⁸God has blocked my way so I cannot move. He has plunged my path into darkness.

⁹He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.

¹⁰He has demolished me on every side, and I am finished. He has uprooted my hope like a fallen tree.

¹¹His fury burns against me; he counts me as an enemy.

¹²His troops advance. They build up roads to attack me. They camp all around my tent.

¹³“My relatives stay far away, and my friends have turned against me.

¹⁴My family is gone, and my close friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵My servants and maids consider me a stranger. I am like a foreigner to them.

¹⁶When I call my servant, he doesn’t come; I have to plead with him!

¹⁷My breath is repulsive to my wife. I am rejected by my own family.

¹⁸Even young children despise me. When I stand to speak, they turn their backs on me.

¹⁹My close friends detest me. Those I loved have turned against me.

²⁰I have been reduced to skin and bones and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth.

²¹“Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for the hand of God has struck me.

²²Must you also persecute me, like God does? Haven’t you chewed me up enough?

²³“Oh, that my words could be recorded. Oh, that they could be inscribed on a monument,

²⁴carved with an iron chisel and filled with lead, engraved forever in the rock.

²⁵“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last.

²⁶And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God!

²⁷I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!

²⁸“How dare you go on persecuting me, saying, ‘It’s his own fault’?

²⁹You should fear punishment yourselves, for your attitude deserves punishment. Then you will know that there is indeed a judgment.”

Job 19 (NLT)

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Job

Chapter 19

19 of 42