Job 19

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