Chapter 19

  Then Job answered,  

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  'How long will you torment me, And crush me with words?  

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  You have reproached me ten times. You aren't ashamed that you attack me.  

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  If it is true that I have erred, My error remains with myself.  

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  If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, And plead against me my reproach;  

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  Know now that God has subverted me, And has surrounded me with his net.  

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  'Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry for help, but there is no justice.  

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  He has walled up my way so that I can't pass, And has set darkness in my paths.  

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  He has stripped me of my glory, And taken the crown from my head.  

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  He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. My hope he has plucked up like a tree.  

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  He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.  

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  His troops come on together, Build a siege ramp against me, And encamp around my tent.  

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  'He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.  

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  My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.  

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  Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.  

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  I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer; I beg him with my mouth.  

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  My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.  

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  Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.  

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  All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.  

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  My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.  

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  'Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends; For the hand of God has touched me.  

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  Why do you persecute me as God, And are not satisfied with my flesh?  

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  'Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!  

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  That with an iron pen and lead They were engraved in the rock forever!  

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  But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth.  

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  After my skin is destroyed, Then in my flesh shall I see God,  

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  Whom I, even I, shall see on my side. My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger. 'My heart is consumed within me.  

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  If you say, 'How we will persecute him!' Because the root of the matter is found in me,  

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  Be afraid of the sword, For wrath brings the punishments of the sword, That you may know there is a judgment.'  

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