Job 19

²Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am frail; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are in agony.

³My soul is deeply distressed. How long, O Lord, how long?

¹⁰And they cried out in a loud voice, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge those who dwell upon the earth and avenge our blood?”

¹⁰Like the crushing of my bones, my enemies taunt me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

⁷See what they spew from their mouths—sharp words from their lips: “For who can hear us?”

²¹His speech is smooth as butter, but war is in his heart. His words are softer than oil, yet they are swords unsheathed.

²¹Life and death are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

⁷And although he has cheated me and changed my wages ten times, God has not allowed him to harm me.

²⁰In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his entire kingdom.

⁴You who tear yourself in anger—should the earth be forsaken on your account, or the rocks be moved from their place?

⁵Indeed, the lamp of the wicked is extinguished; the flame of his fire does not glow.

¹¹Are the consolations of God not enough for you, even words spoken gently to you?

¹²Why has your heart carried you away, and why do your eyes flash,

⁴But you even undermine the fear of God and hinder meditation before Him.

⁵For your iniquity instructs your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty.

¹⁷My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family.

¹⁰For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive his due for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.

⁴Behold, every soul belongs to Me; both father and son are Mine. The soul who sins is the one who will die.

¹²If you are wise, you are wise to your own advantage; but if you scoff, you alone will bear the consequences.

⁵For each one should carry his own load.

³Should your babbling put others to silence? Will you scoff without rebuke?

⁴You have said, ‘My doctrine is sound, and I am pure in Your sight.’

¹⁷When David saw the angel striking down the people, he said to the Lord, “Surely I, the shepherd, have sinned and acted wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please, let Your hand fall upon me and my father’s house.”

²⁶May those who gloat in my distress be ashamed and confounded; may those who exalt themselves over me be clothed in shame and reproach.

¹²For it is not an enemy who insults me; that I could endure. It is not a foe who rises against me; from him I could hide.

¹⁶For I said, “Let them not gloat over me—those who taunt me when my foot slips.”

¹⁰This they shall have in return for their pride, for taunting and mocking the people of the Lord of Hosts.

²⁵“The Lord has done this for me. In these days He has shown me favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”

⁸Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will arise; though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.

⁸For his own feet lead him into a net, and he wanders into its mesh.

⁹A trap seizes his heel; a snare grips him.

²“As surely as God lives, who has deprived me of justice—the Almighty, who has embittered my soul—

¹¹God has delivered me to unjust men; He has thrown me to the clutches of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, but He shattered me; He seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has set me up as His target;

²⁰If I have sinned, what have I done to You, O watcher of mankind? Why have You made me Your target, so that I am a burden to You?

¹²As they go, I will spread My net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the air. I will chastise them when I hear them flocking together.

¹²Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the Lord made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger?

¹³He sent fire from on high, and it overpowered my bones. He spread a net for my feet and turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day long.

²How long, O Lord, must I call for help but You do not hear, or cry out to You, “Violence!” but You do not save?

³Why do You make me see iniquity? Why do You tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me. Strife is ongoing, and conflict abounds.

⁸Even when I cry out and plead for help, He shuts out my prayer.

³If only I knew where to find Him, so that I could go to His seat.

⁴I would plead my case before Him and fill my mouth with arguments.

⁸Would you really annul My justice? Would you condemn Me to justify yourself?

³⁵(Oh, that I had one to hear me! Here is my signature. Let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser compose an indictment.

³⁶Surely I would carry it on my shoulder and wear it like a crown.

²⁷Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me.

²³Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?

⁷He has walled me in so I cannot escape; He has weighed me down with chains.

⁸You have removed my friends from me; You have made me repulsive to them; I am confined and cannot escape.

⁹He has barred my ways with cut stones; He has made my paths crooked.

¹⁹But the way of the wicked is like the darkest gloom; they do not know what makes them stumble.

⁶Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her path with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so she cannot find her way.

⁴⁴You have ended his splendor and cast his throne to the ground.

⁷When I went out to the city gate and took my seat in the public square,

⁸the young men saw me and withdrew, and the old men rose to their feet.

³⁹You have renounced the covenant with Your servant and sullied his crown in the dust.

¹⁶The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!

¹“But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to put with my sheep dogs.

¹⁷He leads counselors away barefoot and makes fools of judges.

²⁰The womb forgets them; the worm feeds on them; they are remembered no more. So injustice is broken like a tree.

³⁵I have seen a wicked, ruthless man flourishing like a well-rooted native tree,

³⁶yet he passed away and was no more; though I searched, he could not be found.

¹⁴What He tears down cannot be rebuilt; the man He imprisons cannot be released.

⁸We are hard pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;

⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.

⁷So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

¹¹My days are like lengthening shadows, and I wither away like grass.

²⁴Why do You hide Your face and consider me as Your enemy?

¹⁰Yet God finds occasions against me; He counts me as His enemy.

⁹His anger has torn me and opposed me; He gnashes His teeth at me. My adversary pierces me with His eyes.

⁴⁶How long, O Lord? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath keep burning like fire?

⁵The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah.

²²For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains.

¹²The rabble arises at my right; they lay snares for my feet and build siege ramps against me.

¹³His archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my gall on the ground.

¹¹God has delivered me to unjust men; He has thrown me to the clutches of the wicked.

⁵Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.

⁶I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

²³I will place it in the hands of your tormentors, who told you: ‘Lie down, so we can walk over you,’ so that you made your back like the ground, like a street to be traversed.”

⁸You have removed my friends from me; You have made me repulsive to them; I am confined and cannot escape.

⁸I have become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to my mother’s sons,

¹⁸You have removed my beloved and my friend; darkness is my closest companion.

¹¹Among all my enemies I am a disgrace, and among my neighbors even more. I am dreaded by my friends—they flee when they see me on the street.

²⁰Insults have broken my heart, and I am in despair. I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found no one.

⁷Surely He has now exhausted me; You have devastated all my family.

¹¹My beloved and friends shun my disease, and my kinsmen stand at a distance.

²¹Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rise against their parents and have them put to death.

¹⁰For I have heard the whispering of many: “Terror is on every side! Report him; let us report him!” All my trusted friends watch for my fall: “Perhaps he will be deceived so that we may prevail against him and take our vengeance upon him.”

²⁴A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who stays closer than a brother.

¹⁸I am not speaking about all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But this is to fulfill the Scripture: ‘The one who shares My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’

⁵Do not rely on a friend; do not trust in a companion. Seal the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms.

⁶For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies are the members of his own household.

³Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy, for we have endured much contempt.

³¹if the men of my house have not said, ‘Who is there who has not had his fill?’—

³²but no stranger had to lodge on the street, for my door has been open to the traveler—

¹⁵the Sabeans swooped down and took them away. They put the servants to the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

¹⁶While he was still speaking, another messenger came and reported: “The fire of God fell from heaven. It burned and consumed the sheep and the servants, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

¹⁹when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on the young people and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”

⁹Then Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!”

¹⁰“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

¹“My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; the grave awaits me.

²³From there, Elisha went up to Bethel, and as he was walking up the road, a group of boys came out of the city and jeered at him, chanting, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!”

¹²The rabble arises at my right; they lay snares for my feet and build siege ramps against me.

¹“But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to put with my sheep dogs.

⁵The people will oppress one another, man against man, neighbor against neighbor; the young will rise up against the old, and the base against the honorable.

⁹Even my close friend whom I trusted, the one who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.

¹²For it is not an enemy who insults me; that I could endure. It is not a foe who rises against me; from him I could hide.

¹³But it is you, a man like myself, my companion and close friend.

⁴In return for my love they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer.

⁵They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my love.

¹⁴A despairing man should have the kindness of his friend, even if he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.

¹⁵But my brothers are as faithless as wadis, as seasonal streams that overflow,

¹¹My beloved and friends shun my disease, and my kinsmen stand at a distance.

⁴⁸But Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”

⁵Through my loud groaning my skin hangs on my bones.

⁸But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick.

¹⁹A man is also chastened on his bed with pain and constant distress in his bones,

²⁰so that he detests his bread, and his soul loathes his favorite food.

¹⁴I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed. My heart is like wax; it melts away within me.

¹⁵My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death.

⁴“Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give up all he owns in exchange for his life.

⁵But stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”

⁵My flesh is clothed with worms and encrusted with dirt; my skin is cracked and festering.

¹¹But stretch out Your hand and strike all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”

²For Your arrows have pierced me deeply, and Your hand has pressed down on me.

⁴For the arrows of the Almighty have pierced me; my spirit drinks in their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.

¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.

³Remember those in prison as if you were bound with them, and those who are mistreated as if you were suffering with them.

²⁶If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

²⁶For they persecute the one You struck and recount the pain of those You wounded.

²⁵Would You frighten a windblown leaf? Would You chase after dry chaff?

³¹if the men of my house have not said, ‘Who is there who has not had his fill?’—

¹¹God has delivered me to unjust men; He has thrown me to the clutches of the wicked.

³You eat the flesh of my people after stripping off their skin and breaking their bones. You chop them up like flesh for the cooking pot, like meat in a cauldron.”

²³I will place it in the hands of your tormentors, who told you: ‘Lie down, so we can walk over you,’ so that you made your back like the ground, like a street to be traversed.”

⁸Go now, write it on a tablet in their presence and inscribe it on a scroll; it will be for the days to come, a witness forever and ever.

³⁵(Oh, that I had one to hear me! Here is my signature. Let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser compose an indictment.

¹Then the Lord said to me, “Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary stylus: Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

¹“The sin of Judah is written with an iron stylus, engraved with a diamond point on the tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars.

¹⁶The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

²And on the day you cross the Jordan into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, set up large stones and coat them with plaster.

³Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you.

²¹The twelve stones are to correspond to the names of the sons of Israel, each engraved like a seal with the name of one of the twelve tribes.

¹¹Engrave the names of the sons of Israel on the two stones the way a gem cutter engraves a seal. Then mount the stones in gold filigree settings.

¹²Fasten both stones on the shoulder pieces of the ephod as memorial stones for the sons of Israel. Aaron is to bear their names on his two shoulders as a memorial before the Lord.

⁸And you shall write distinctly upon these stones all the words of this law.”

⁷In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace

⁵For your husband is your Maker—the Lord of Hosts is His name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth.

³⁵And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.

¹⁴May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

¹¹for their Redeemer is strong; He will take up their case against you.

²²Furthermore, the Father judges no one, but has assigned all judgment to the Son,

²³so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

⁸Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

²Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.

¹⁵As for me, I will behold Your face in righteousness; when I awake, I will be satisfied in Your presence.

⁷Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him—even those who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. So shall it be! Amen.

¹²Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹¹You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.

²⁶My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

¹⁹Your dead will live; their bodies will rise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust! For your dew is like the dew of the morning, and the earth will bring forth her dead.

¹⁷I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come forth from Jacob, and a scepter will arise from Israel. He will crush the skulls of Moab and strike down all the sons of Sheth.

²²Why do you persecute me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?

²⁶For they persecute the one You struck and recount the pain of those You wounded.

¹³All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. For this is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will receive a proper burial, because only in him has the Lord, the God of Israel, found any good in the house of Jeroboam.

⁹Rejoice, O young man, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment.

¹⁴For God will bring every deed into judgment, along with every hidden thing, whether good or evil.

⁷Will you speak wickedly on God’s behalf or speak deceitfully for Him?

⁸Would you show Him partiality or argue in His defense?

⁵Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

¹“Do not judge, or you will be judged.

²For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

¹⁰The righteous will rejoice when they see they are avenged; they will wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.

¹¹Then men will say, “There is surely a reward for the righteous! There is surely a God who judges the earth!”