Job 19

Then Job replied to Bildad and the others. He said, 2 “The three of you must stop hurting me and discouraging me by saying that I am wicked! \* 3 You have insulted me repeatedly. You should be ashamed for speaking so harshly to me! 4 Even if it were true that I had done wrong, that would be my concern, not yours! \* 5 If you truly think that you are better than I am, and if you are claiming that I must be guilty because I am suffering, 6 you should realize that it is God who has caused me to suffer. It is as if he had a net and caught me in it, like an animal he wanted to trap. \* 7 Listen to me: I protest that God is punishing me unfairly, but no one agrees with me. I cry for help, but no one, not even God, treats me fairly. 8 It is as if God has blocked my road so that I can not go anywhere. It is as if God has forced me to try to find my way in total darkness. 9 He has taken away my good reputation. It is as if he has taken a crown of authority off my head. \* 10 He is ruining everything that I have. I no longer hope to experience good things in this life. I expect that I will soon die, as if I were a tree that he had pulled completely out of the ground. 11 He attacks me because he is very angry with me. He treats me as if I were his enemy. 12 It is as if he were sending an army against me that has surrounded me and is getting ready to destroy me. \* 13 God has caused my family to abandon me. Those who know me now act like strangers toward me. 14 My relatives have left me and my good friends ignore me. \* 15 People who were guests in my house and even my female servants act as if they do not recognize me. They treat me like a foreigner whom they do not know. 16 When I order my servants to come, they do not obey. I have to beg my servants to help me. \* 17 My wife stays away from me, even though I was a good father to our children. 18 Even young children disrespect me. When I stand up to talk, they laugh at me. 19 All of my intimate friends now detest me. The people I love are hostile to me. \* 20 I have become so thin that my bones are visible beneath my skin; I am barely alive. 21 I plead with you, my three friends, pity me because God is making me suffer greatly. 22 You should not be making me suffer as well, as if you were God and had to punish sin. You seem to think that you need to keep accusing me of doing things wrong! \* 23 I wish that someone would now write what I have been saying in a book {so that people could read it}. 24 {Or else,} I wish that someone would carve what I have said onto a rock with a chisel and highlight it with lead so that people could always read it. \* 25 But I know that there is someone who will defend me and that some day he will appear here on the earth and declare me innocent. 26 Even after I die and people bury me and my body decays, still, in my body I will see God. 27 I will see him myself! Yes, I will see him personally! My emotions overwhelm me as I think about that! \* 28 But if you three men still think that you need to accuse me of doing wrong because you believe I am responsible for the sufferings I am experiencing, 29 then you should fear that God will punish you, because God becomes angry with unfair people like you and he punishes them. When that happens, you will know that God punishes people fairly.” \*