Job 19-20

Job 19

¹And Job answereth and saith: --

²Till when do ye afflict my soul, And bruise me with words?

³These ten times ye put me to shame, ye blush not. Ye make yourselves strange to me --

⁴And also -- truly, I have erred, With me doth my error remain.

⁵If, truly, over me ye magnify yourselves, And decide against me my reproach;

⁶Know now, that God turned me upside down, And His net against me hath set round,

⁷Lo, I cry out -- violence, and am not answered, I cry aloud, and there is no judgment.

⁸My way He hedged up, and I pass not over, And on my paths darkness He placeth.

⁹Mine honour from off me He hath stripped, And He turneth the crown from my head.

¹⁰He breaketh me down round about, and I go, And removeth like a tree my hope.

¹¹And He kindleth against me His anger, And reckoneth me to Him as His adversaries.

¹²Come in do His troops together, And they raise up against me their way, And encamp round about my tent.

¹³My brethren from me He hath put far off, And mine acquaintances surely Have been estranged from me.

¹⁴Ceased have my neighbours And my familiar friends have forgotten me,

¹⁵Sojourners of my house and my maids, For a stranger reckon me: An alien I have been in their eyes.

¹⁶To my servant I have called, And he doth not answer, With my mouth I make supplication to him.

¹⁷My spirit is strange to my wife, And my favours to the sons of my [mother's] womb.

¹⁸Also sucklings have despised me, I rise, and they speak against me.

¹⁹Abominate me do all the men of my counsel, And those I have loved, Have been turned against me.

²⁰To my skin and to my flesh Cleaved hath my bone, And I deliver myself with the skin of my teeth.

²¹Pity me, pity me, ye my friends, For the hand of God hath stricken against me.

²²Why do you pursue me as God? And with my flesh are not satisfied?

²³Who doth grant now, That my words may be written? Who doth grant that in a book they may be graven?

²⁴With a pen of iron and lead -- For ever in a rock they may be hewn.

²⁵That -- I have known my Redeemer, The Living and the Last, For the dust he doth rise.

²⁶And after my skin hath compassed this [body], Then from my flesh I see God:

²⁷Whom I -- I see on my side, And mine eyes have beheld, and not a stranger, Consumed have been my reins in my bosom.

²⁸But ye say, ‘Why do we pursue after him?' And the root of the matter hath been found in me.

²⁹Be ye afraid because of the sword, For furious [are] the punishments of the sword, That ye may know that [there is] a judgment.

Job 20

¹And Zophar the Naamathite answereth and saith: --

²Therefore my thoughts cause me to answer, And because of my sensations in me.

³The chastisement of my shame I hear, And the spirit of mine understanding Doth cause me to answer:

⁴This hast thou known from antiquity? Since the placing of man on earth?

⁵That the singing of the wicked [is] short, And the joy of the profane for a moment,

⁶Though his excellency go up to the heavens, And his head against a cloud he strike --

⁷As his own dung for ever he doth perish, His beholders say: ‘Where [is] he?'

⁸As a dream he fleeth, and they find him not, And he is driven away as a vision of the night,

⁹The eye hath not seen him, and addeth not. And not again doth his place behold him.

¹⁰His sons do the poor oppress, And his hands give back his wealth.

¹¹His bones have been full of his youth, And with him on the dust it lieth down.

¹²Though he doth sweeten evil in his mouth, Doth hide it under his tongue,

¹³Hath pity on it, and doth not forsake it, And keep it back in the midst of his palate,

¹⁴His food in his bowels is turned, The bitterness of asps [is] in his heart.

¹⁵Wealth he hath swallowed, and doth vomit it. From his belly God driveth it out.

¹⁶Gall of asps he sucketh, Slay him doth the tongue of a viper.

¹⁷He looketh not on rivulets, Flowing of brooks of honey and butter.

¹⁸He is giving back [what] he laboured for, And doth not consume [it]; As a bulwark [is] his exchange, and he exults not.

¹⁹For he oppressed -- he forsook the poor, A house he hath taken violently away, And he doth not build it.

²⁰For he hath not known ease in his belly. With his desirable thing he delivereth not himself.

²¹There is not a remnant to his food, Therefore his good doth not stay.

²²In the fulness of his sufficiency he is straitened. Every perverse hand doth meet him.

²³It cometh to pass, at the filling of his belly, He sendeth forth against him The fierceness of His anger, Yea, He raineth on him in his eating.

²⁴He fleeth from an iron weapon, Pass through him doth a bow of brass.

²⁵One hath drawn, And it cometh out from the body, And a glittering weapon from his gall proceedeth. On him [are] terrors.

²⁶All darkness is hid for his treasures, Consume him doth a fire not blown, Broken is the remnant in his tent.

²⁷Reveal do the heavens his iniquity, And earth is raising itself against him.

²⁸Remove doth the increase of his house, Poured forth in a day of His anger.

²⁹This [is] the portion of a wicked man from God. And an inheritance appointed him by God.