Job 19

19 ¹ Then Job answered and said: ² "How long will you torment my soul and crush me with words? ³ These ten times you have insulted me; you are not ashamed to wrong me. ⁴ And even if I have truly erred, my error remains with me. ⁵ If indeed you exalt yourselves over me and use my disgrace as an argument against me, ⁶ know then that God has wronged me and has closed his net around me. ⁷ I cry out, 'Violence!' but I am not answered; I call for help, but there is no justice. ^a a v7 Crying 'Violence!' was an ancient public appeal for justice — a recognised call for help against a wrong done to you. ⁸ He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths. ⁹ He has stripped my glory from me and taken the crown from my head. ¹⁰ He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; he has uprooted my hope like a tree. ¹¹ He has kindled his wrath against me and counts me as his adversary. ¹² His troops advance together; they build their siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent. ¹³ He has put my brothers far from me, and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me. ¹⁴ My relatives have failed me, and my close friends have forgotten me. ¹⁵ The guests in my house and my maids count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes. ¹⁶ I call to my servant, but he gives no answer; I have to plead with him myself. ¹⁷ My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own brothers. ¹⁸ Even young children despise me; when I rise, they talk against me. ¹⁹ All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me. ²⁰ My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. ²¹ Have pity on me, have pity on me, my friends, for the hand of God has struck me! ²² Why do you pursue me like God, and are never satisfied with my flesh? ²³ If only my words were written down! If only they were inscribed in a scroll! ²⁴ that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! ²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the dust. ^b b v25 Through chapter after chapter of suffering, Job has spoken of God in distant register — but here a relational name breaks through: 'my Redeemer,' the one who claims him as his own. Christian tradition has long heard this verse as the early hope our Father fulfills in Jesus, who will stand at the last day to vindicate his children. ²⁶ And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, ²⁷ whom I myself shall see, and my own eyes shall gaze on him, not another. My heart faints within me! ²⁸ If you say, 'How we will pursue him!' and, 'The root of the matter is found in him,' ²⁹ be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.