Job 19:1-29 ESV

[1] Then Job answered and said: [2] "How long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words? [3] These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me? [4] And even if it be true that I have erred, my error remains with myself. [5] If indeed you magnify yourselves against me and make my disgrace an argument against me, [6] know then that God has put me in the wrong and closed his net about me. [7] Behold, I cry out, 'Violence!' but I am not answered; I call for help, but there is no justice. [8] He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths. [9] He has stripped from me my glory and taken the crown from my head. [10] He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, and my hope has he pulled up like a tree. [11] He has kindled his wrath against me and counts me as his adversary. [12] His 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. [14] My relatives have failed me, my close friends have forgotten me. [15] The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes. [16] I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy. [17] My breath is strange to my wife, and I am a stench to the children of my own mother. [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 stick to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. [21] Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! [22] Why 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! [24] Oh 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 earth. [26] And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, [27] whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and 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."