Chapter 19

  And Job made answer and said,  

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  How long will you make my life bitter, crushing me with words?  

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  Ten times now you have made sport of me; it gives you no sense of shame to do me wrong.  

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  And, truly, if I have been in error, the effect of my error is only on myself.  

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  If you make yourselves great against me, using my punishment as an argument against me,  

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  Be certain that it is God who has done me wrong, and has taken me in his net.  

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  Truly, I make an outcry against the violent man, but there is no answer: I give a cry for help, but no one takes up my cause.  

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  My way is walled up by him so that I may not go by: he has made my roads dark.  

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  He has put off my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head.  

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  I am broken down by him on every side, and I am gone; my hope is uprooted like a tree.  

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  His wrath is burning against me, and I am to him as one of his haters.  

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  His armies come on together, they make their road high against me, and put up their tents round mine.  

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  He has taken my brothers far away from me; they have seen my fate and have become strange to me.  

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  My relations and my near friends have given me up, and those living in my house have put me out of their minds.  

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  I am strange to my women-servants, and seem to them as one from another country.  

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  At my cry my servant gives me no answer, and I have to make a prayer to him.  

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  My breath is strange to my wife, and I am disgusting to the offspring of my mother's body.  

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  Even young children have no respect for me; when I get up their backs are turned on me.  

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  All the men of my circle keep away from me; and those dear to me are turned against me.  

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  My bones are joined to my skin, and I have got away with my flesh in my teeth.  

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  Have pity on me, have pity on me, O my friends! for the hand of God is on me.  

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  Why are you cruel to me, like God, for ever saying evil against me?  

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  If only my words might be recorded! if they might be put in writing in a book!  

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  And with an iron pen and lead be cut into the rock for ever!  

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  But I am certain that he who will take up my cause is living, and that in time to come he will take his place on the dust;  

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  And ... without my flesh I will see God;  

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  Whom I will see on my side, and not as one strange to me. My heart is broken with desire.  

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  If you say, How cruel we will be to him! because the root of sin is clearly in him:  

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  Be in fear of the sword, for the sword is the punishment for such things, so that you may be certain that there is a judge.  

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