Job 19:1-29 VOICE

[1] Job answered his friends in frustration. [2] Job: O how long! How long will you torture me and pound me with your chatter? [3] What is it now? Eight times? Nine times? No, surely it's ten times you have insulted me. Ten times you've shamelessly acted to harm me. [4] Even if I have erred, my faults lie with me alone. [5] However, if you must exalt yourselves at my expense, if you must proffer my own disgrace as evidence against me, [6] Then you ought at least to know that I have been wronged by God. Yes, His net is closed about me. [7] Look! I cry out, "Violence!" but no response comes. I shout for help, but justice eludes me. [8] He is a roadblock. He will not let me pass; He has covered my roads in darkness. [9] He has stripped me of my honor, torn the crown off my head. [10] He comes at me from all sides, but I attempt to leave; He rips out my hope as if it were a tree in dry ground. [11] His anger burns white-hot against me, and He considers me His enemy. [12] His militia arrives to raise a siege ramp against me and to surround my dwelling. [13] He has driven my relatives far from me; I am cut off from my friends. [14] My entire family has failed me; my best friends have forgotten me. [15] Everyone in my house, including my maidservants, treats me like an outsider; I am a stranger to them now. [16] When I send for my servant, he does not come. I even plead with him with my own voice. [17] My breath is strange; even my wife avoids me; I'm loathsome to my relatives; they can't stand to be around me. [18] Even young children taunt me, and when I seek to rise, they mock me. [19] My closest friends can no longer bear me, and anyone I have ever loved has turned against me. [20] I am reduced to skin and bones; I have barely escaped by the skin of my teeth. [21] Show me your pity, my friends, show me your pity! For truly, I have been struck by the hand of God. [22] Why do you pursue me as God has done? Is my emaciated body not satisfying enough for you? [23] What I would give to have my words taken down, to have them inscribed for posterity on a scroll. [24] No! More than that! To have them chiseled with iron filled with lead- carved in stone for all eternity. [25] Besides, I know my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will rise and take His stand on the earth. [26] And though my skin has been stripped off, still, in my flesh, I will see God. [27] I, myself, will see Him: not some stranger, but actually me, with these eyes. Toward this end, my deepest longings pine away within my chest. [28] Job: If you ask, "How will we pursue him since the root cause of his suffering lies in him?" [29] You ought to fear the sword yourselves; for the sword bears fury's punishment in order that you might realize there is, in fact, a judgment.