Job 19 — The Holy Bible

How Long Will You Weary Me?

Job 19, verse 1. Then Job answered and said:

“How long will you weary my soul

And take me down with words?

Only know how the Lord has dealt with me thus.

You speak against me, and while shaming me,

You press hard on me.

Yes indeed, I have truly erred; my error lodges with me.

When I speak words which I should not have spoken,

My words go astray and are unseasonable.

Alas! You exalt yourselves against me

And attack me with disgrace.

Know therefore that the Lord has troubled me

And raised His stronghold against me.

Behold, I laugh at disgrace and I will not speak.

Nor will I cry out, for judgment is nowhere to be found.

I am walled in round about and cannot cross over,

For He has set darkness before my face.

He stripped me of my glory

And took the crown from my head.

He has torn me apart on every side, and I am gone.

He has uprooted my hope like a tree.

He handled me vehemently in wrath

And has counted me like an enemy.

His raiders came against me with one accord.

They encircled my paths and lay in wait.

“My brothers stood far from me

And recognized strangers rather than me.

So my friends became unmerciful.

My relatives acted as though they did not know me,

And my close friends have forgotten me.

As for my neighbors and the maidservants of my house,

I was a stranger before them.

I called my servant, but he gave no answer,

Though I begged him with my mouth.

I also entreated my wife,

And summoned the children of my concubines and flattered them.

But they rejected me forever.

When I arise, they speak against me.

Those who know me detest me,

And those whom I truly love turned against me.

The muscles of my body have decayed under my skin,

And my bones are held in my teeth.

The Lord Is Everlasting

“Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O friends,

For the hand of the Lord has touched me.

Why do you persecute me as the Lord does,

And are not satisfied because of my flesh?

“For who may commit my words to writing,

To put them in a book forever,

With an iron pen and lead,

Or to engrave them in rocks?

For I know He is everlasting,

He who is about to set me free on the earth

And to raise up my skin that endures these things;

For these have been accomplished for me by the Lord;

Which I myself am conscious of,

And my eyes have beheld, and not those of another.

All has been accomplished for me in my bosom.

If you shall say, ‘What shall we say before him?

Then we will find in him the root of the matter.’

Indeed, be afraid to cover up your evil,

For wrath will come upon lawless men;

Then they will know where their substance is.”