Job 19 - 20 - Legacy Standard Bible

Job 19 - 20

My Redeemer Lives

Then Job answered and said, 2

“How long will you torment my soul

And crush me with words?

These ten times you have dishonored me;

You are not ashamed that you wrong me.

Even if I have truly erred,

My error lodges with me.

If truly you magnify yourselves against me

And argue my disgrace to me,

Know then that God has wronged me

And has closed His net around me.

“Behold, I cry, ‘Violence!’ but I get no answer;

I shout for help, but there is no justice.

He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass,

And He has put darkness on my paths.

He has stripped my honor from me

And removed the crown from my head.

He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone;

And He has uprooted my hope like a tree.

He has also kindled His anger against me

And counted me as His adversary.

His troops come together,

And build up their way against me

And camp around my tent.

“He has removed my brothers far from me,

And my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.

My relatives have failed,

And my familiar friends have forgotten me.

Those who sojourn in my house and my maidservants count me a stranger.

I am a foreigner in their sight.

I call to my servant, but he does not answer;

I have to implore him with my mouth.

My breath is offensive to my wife,

And I am loathsome to my own brothers.

Even young children reject me;

I rise up, and they speak against me.

All the men of my counsel abhor me,

And those I love have turned against me.

My bone clings to my skin and my flesh,

And I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.

Pity me, pity me, O you my friends,

For the hand of God has smitten me.

Why do you persecute me as God does,

And are not satisfied with my flesh?

“Oh that my words were written!

Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

That with an iron stylus and lead

They were engraved in the rock forever!

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,

And at the last He will rise up over the dust of this world.

Even after my skin is destroyed,

Yet from my flesh I shall behold God,

Whom I myself shall behold,

And whom my eyes will see and not another.

My heart faints within me!

If you say, ‘How shall we persecute him?’

‘And the root of the matter is found in him?’

Then be afraid of the sword for yourselves,

For wrath brings the punishment of the sword,

So that you may know there is judgment.”

Zophar Says the Joy of the Wicked Is Short

Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said, 2

“Therefore my disquieting thoughts make me respond,

Even because of my haste within me.

I listened to the discipline which dishonors me,

And the spirit of my understanding makes me answer.

Do you know this from of old,

From the establishment of man on earth,

That the shouts of joy of the wicked are short,

And the gladness of the godless momentary?

Though his loftiness goes up to the heavens,

And his head touches the clouds,

He perishes forever like his refuse;

Those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’

He flies away like a dream, and they cannot find him;

Even like a vision of the night he is chased away.

The eye which saw him sees him no longer,

And his place no longer beholds him.

His sons seek the favor of the poor,

And his hands give back his wealth.

His bones are full of his youthful vigor,

But it lies down with him in the dust.

“Though evil is sweet in his mouth

And he hides it under his tongue,

Though he desires it and will not forsake it,

And holds it to his palate,

Yet his food in his stomach is changed

To the venom of cobras within him.

He swallows up wealth,

But will vomit it up;

God will expel it from his belly.

He sucks the poison of cobras;

The viper’s tongue kills him.

He does not look at the streams,

The rivers flowing with honey and curds.

He returns what he has attained

And cannot swallow it;

As to the wealth of his trading,

He cannot even enjoy it.

For he has crushed and forsaken the poor;

He has seized a house which he has not built.

“Because he knew no ease within his belly,

In his covetousness, he does not let anything escape.

Nothing remains for him to devour;

Therefore his prosperity does not endure.

In the fullness of his plenty he will be confined;

The hand of everyone who is troubled will come against him.

So it will be that he fills his belly,

And God will send His burning anger on him

And will rain it on him while he is eating.

He may flee from the iron weapon,

But the bronze bow will pierce him.

It is drawn forth and comes out of his back,

Even the glittering point from his gall;

Bouts of dread come upon him.

Complete darkness is held in reserve for his treasures;

A fire unfanned will devour him;

It will consume the survivor in his tent.

The heavens will reveal his iniquity,

And the earth will rise up against him.

The increase of his house will depart;

His possessions will flow away in the day of His anger.

This is the wicked man’s portion from God,

Even the inheritance decreed to him by God.”