Job 16-19

Job 16

¹Then Job answered,

²“I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!

³Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?

⁴I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,

⁵but I would strengthen you with my mouth. The solace of my lips would relieve you.

⁶“Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased?

⁷But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made all my company desolate.

⁸You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face.

⁹He has torn me in his wrath and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.

¹⁰They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me.

¹¹God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target.

¹³His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my bile on the ground.

¹⁴He breaks me with breach on breach. He runs at me like a giant.

¹⁵I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and have thrust my horn in the dust.

¹⁶My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids,

¹⁷although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸“Earth, don’t cover my blood. Let my cry have no place to rest.

¹⁹Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven. He who vouches for me is on high.

²⁰My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,

²¹that he would maintain the right of a man with God, of a son of man with his neighbor!

²²For when a few years have come, I will go the way of no return.

Job 17

¹“My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct and the grave is ready for me.

²Surely there are mockers with me. My eye dwells on their provocation.

³“Now give a pledge. Be collateral for me with yourself. Who is there who will strike hands with me?

⁴For you have hidden their heart from understanding, therefore you will not exalt them.

⁵He who denounces his friends for plunder, even the eyes of his children will fail.

⁶“But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face.

⁷My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow.

⁸Upright men will be astonished at this. The innocent will stir himself up against the godless.

⁹Yet the righteous will hold to his way. He who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.

¹⁰But as for you all, come back. I will not find a wise man among you.

¹¹My days are past. My plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart.

¹²They change the night into day, saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness.

¹³If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,

¹⁴if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘My sister,’

¹⁵where then is my hope? As for my hope, who will see it?

¹⁶Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?”

Job 18

¹Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,

²“How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and afterwards we will speak.

³Why are we counted as animals, which have become unclean in your sight?

⁴You who tear yourself in your anger, will the earth be forsaken for you? Or will the rock be removed out of its place?

⁵“Yes, the light of the wicked will be put out. The spark of his fire won’t shine.

⁶The light will be dark in his tent. His lamp above him will be put out.

⁷The steps of his strength will be shortened. His own counsel will cast him down.

⁸For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh.

⁹A snare will take him by the heel. A trap will catch him.

¹⁰A noose is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him on the path.

¹¹Terrors will make him afraid on every side, and will chase him at his heels.

¹²His strength will be famished. Calamity will be ready at his side.

¹³The members of his body will be devoured. The firstborn of death will devour his members.

¹⁴He will be rooted out of the security of his tent. He will be brought to the king of terrors.

¹⁵There will dwell in his tent that which is none of his. Sulfur will be scattered on his habitation.

¹⁶His roots will be dried up beneath. His branch will be cut off above.

¹⁷His memory will perish from the earth. He will have no name in the street.

¹⁸He will be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.

¹⁹He will have neither son nor grandson among his people, nor any remaining where he lived.

²⁰Those who come after will be astonished at his day, as those who went before were frightened.

²¹Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous. This is the place of him who doesn’t know God.”

Job 19

¹Then Job answered,

²“How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?

³You have reproached me ten times. You aren’t ashamed that you attack me.

⁴If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.

⁵If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach,

⁶know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.

⁷“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice.

⁸He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths.

⁹He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.

¹⁰He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. He has plucked my hope up like a tree.

¹¹He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.

¹²His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent.

¹³“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

¹⁴My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.

¹⁶I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth.

¹⁷My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.

¹⁸Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.

¹⁹All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.

²⁰My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

²¹“Have pity on me. Have pity on me, you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me.

²²Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

²³“Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

²⁴That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!

²⁵But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth.

²⁶After my skin is destroyed, then I will see God in my flesh,

²⁷whom I, even I, will see on my side. My eyes will see, and not as a stranger. “My heart is consumed within me.

²⁸If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ because the root of the matter is found in me,

²⁹be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.”