RSV Job 19 Chapter
19:1
Then Job answered:
19:2
'How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with words?
19:3
These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;are you not ashamed to wrong me?
19:4
And even if it be true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.
19:5
If indeed you magnify yourselves against me, and make my humiliation an argument against me,
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know then that God has put me in the wrong, and closed his net about me.
19:7
Behold, I cry out, Violence!' but I am not answered;I call aloud, but there is no justice.
19:8
He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths.
19:9
He has stripped from me my glory, and taken the crown from my head.
19:10
He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.
19:11
He has kindled his wrath against me, and counts me as his adversary.
19:12
His troops come on together;they have cast up siegeworks against me, and encamp round about my tent.
19:13
'He has put my brethren far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
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My kinsfolk and my close friends have failed me;
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the guests in my house have forgotten me;my maidservants count me as a stranger;I have become an alien in their eyes.
19:16
I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;I must beseech him with my mouth.
19:17
I am repulsive to my wife, loathsome to the sons of my own mother.
19:18
Even young children despise me;when I rise they talk against me.
19:19
All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me.
19:20
My bones cleave to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
19:21
Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!
19:22
Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?
19:23
'Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
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Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever!
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For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth;
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and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God,
19:27
whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!
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If you say, How we will pursue him!' and, The root of the matter is found in him';
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be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.'