Job 19

Job Replies: My Redeemer Lives

¹Then Job answered and said:
²"How long will you torment me
and break me in pieces with words?
³These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
are you not ashamed to wrong me?
⁴And even if it be true that I have erred,
my error remains with myself.
⁵If indeed you magnify yourselves against me
and make my disgrace an argument against me,
⁶know then that God has put me in the wrong
and closed his net about me.
⁷Behold, I cry out, 'Violence!' but I am not answered;
I call for help, but there is no justice.
⁸He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass,
and he has set darkness upon my paths.
⁹He has stripped from me my glory
and taken the crown from my head.
¹⁰He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.
¹¹He has kindled his wrath against me
and counts me as his adversary.
¹²His troops come on together;
they have cast up 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.
¹⁴My relatives have failed me,
my close friends have forgotten me.
¹⁵The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger;
I have become a foreigner in their eyes.
¹⁶I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.
¹⁷My breath is strange to my wife,
and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.
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 stick to my skin and to my flesh,
and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
²¹Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has touched me!
²²Why do you, like God, pursue me?
Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

²³"Oh that my words were written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
²⁴Oh that 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 earth.
²⁶And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,
²⁷whom I shall see for myself,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!
²⁸If you say, 'How we will pursue him!'
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."

Job 20

Zophar Speaks: The Wicked Will Suffer

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:
²"Therefore my thoughts answer me,
because of my haste within me.
³I hear censure that insults me,
and out of my understanding a spirit answers me.
⁴Do you not know this from of old,
since man was placed on earth,
⁵ that the exulting of the wicked is short,
and the joy of the godless but for a moment?
⁶ Though his height mount up to the heavens,
and his head reach to the clouds,
⁷he will perish forever like his own dung;
those who have seen him will say, 'Where is he?'
⁸He will fly away like a dream and not be found;
he will be chased away like a vision of the night.
⁹ The eye that saw him will see him no more,
nor will his place any more behold him.
¹⁰His children will seek the favor of the poor,
and his hands will give back his wealth.
¹¹His bones are full of his youthful vigor,
but it will lie down with him in the dust.

¹²"Though evil is sweet in his mouth,
though he hides it under his tongue,
¹³though he is loath to let it go
and holds it in his mouth,
¹⁴yet his food is turned in his stomach;
it is the venom of cobras within him.
¹⁵He swallows down riches and vomits them up again;
God casts them out of his belly.
¹⁶He will suck the poison of cobras;
the tongue of a viper will kill him.
¹⁷He will not look upon the rivers,
the streams flowing with honey and curds.
¹⁸He will give back the fruit of his toil
and will not swallow it down;
from the profit of his trading
he will get no enjoyment.
¹⁹For he has crushed and abandoned the poor;
he has seized a house that he did not build.

²⁰"Because he knew no contentment in his belly,
he will not let anything in which he delights escape him.
²¹There was nothing left after he had eaten;
therefore his prosperity will not endure.
²²In the fullness of his sufficiency he will be in distress;
the hand of everyone in misery will come against him.
²³To fill his belly to the full,
God will send his burning anger against him
and rain it upon him into his body.
²⁴He will flee from an iron weapon;
a bronze arrow will strike him through.
²⁵It is drawn forth and comes out of his body;
the glittering point comes out of his gallbladder;
terrors come upon him.
²⁶Utter darkness is laid up for his treasures;
a fire not fanned will devour him;
what is left in his tent will be consumed.
²⁷ The heavens will reveal his iniquity,
and the earth will rise up against him.
²⁸The possessions of his house will be carried away,
dragged off in the day of God’s wrath.
²⁹ This is the wicked man’s portion from God,
the heritage decreed for him by God."

Job 21

Job Replies: The Wicked Do Prosper

¹Then Job answered and said:
² "Keep listening to my words,
and let this be your comfort.
³Bear with me, and I will speak,
and after I have spoken, mock on.
⁴As for me, is my complaint against man?
Why should I not be impatient?
⁵Look at me and be appalled,
and lay your hand over your mouth.
⁶When I remember, I am dismayed,
and shuddering seizes my flesh.
⁷ Why do the wicked live,
reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
⁸Their offspring are established in their presence,
and their descendants before their eyes.
⁹Their houses are safe from fear,
and no rod of God is upon them.
¹⁰Their bull breeds without fail;
their cow calves and does not miscarry.
¹¹They send out their little boys like a flock,
and their children dance.
¹²They sing to the tambourine and the lyre
and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
¹³They spend their days in prosperity,
and in peace they go down to Sheol.
¹⁴They say to God, 'Depart from us!
We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.
¹⁵ What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
And what profit do we get if we pray to him?'
¹⁶Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand?
The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

¹⁷"How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out?
That their calamity comes upon them?
That God distributes pains in his anger?
¹⁸That they are like straw before the wind,
and like chaff that the storm carries away?
¹⁹You say, 'God stores up their iniquity for their children.'
Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.
²⁰Let their own eyes see their destruction,
and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
²¹For what do they care for their houses after them,
when the number of their months is cut off?
²²Will any teach God knowledge,
seeing that he judges those who are on high?
²³One dies in his full vigor,
being wholly at ease and secure,
²⁴his pails full of milk
and the marrow of his bones moist.
²⁵Another dies in bitterness of soul,
never having tasted of prosperity.
²⁶They lie down alike in the dust,
and the worms cover them.

²⁷"Behold, I know your thoughts
and your schemes to wrong me.
²⁸For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince?
Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?'
²⁹Have you not asked those who travel the roads,
and do you not accept their testimony
³⁰that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity,
that he is rescued in the day of wrath?
³¹Who declares his way to his face,
and who repays him for what he has done?
³²When he is carried to the grave,
watch is kept over his tomb.
³³The clods of the valley are sweet to him;
all mankind follows after him,
and those who go before him are innumerable.
³⁴How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?
There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood."