| Chapter 19 |
1 | And Job made answer and said,
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2 | How long will you make my life bitter, crushing me with words?
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3 | Ten times now you have made sport of me; it gives you no sense of shame to do me wrong.
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4 | And, truly, if I have been in error, the effect of my error is only on myself.
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5 | If you make yourselves great against me, using my punishment as an argument against me,
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6 | Be certain that it is God who has done me wrong, and has taken me in his net.
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7 | Truly, I make an outcry against the violent man, but there is no answer: I give a cry for help, but no one takes up my cause.
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8 | My way is walled up by him so that I may not go by: he has made my roads dark.
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9 | He has put off my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head.
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10 | I am broken down by him on every side, and I am gone; my hope is uprooted like a tree.
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11 | His wrath is burning against me, and I am to him as one of his haters.
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12 | His armies come on together, they make their road high against me, and put up their tents round mine.
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13 | He has taken my brothers far away from me; they have seen my fate and have become strange to me.
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14 | My relations and my near friends have given me up, and those living in my house have put me out of their minds.
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15 | I am strange to my women-servants, and seem to them as one from another country.
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16 | At my cry my servant gives me no answer, and I have to make a prayer to him.
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17 | My breath is strange to my wife, and I am disgusting to the offspring of my mother's body.
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18 | Even young children have no respect for me; when I get up their backs are turned on me.
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19 | All the men of my circle keep away from me; and those dear to me are turned against me.
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20 | My bones are joined to my skin, and I have got away with my flesh in my teeth.
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21 | Have pity on me, have pity on me, O my friends! for the hand of God is on me.
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22 | Why are you cruel to me, like God, for ever saying evil against me?
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23 | If only my words might be recorded! if they might be put in writing in a book!
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24 | And with an iron pen and lead be cut into the rock for ever!
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25 | But I am certain that he who will take up my cause is living, and that in time to come he will take his place on the dust;
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26 | And ... without my flesh I will see God;
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27 | Whom I will see on my side, and not as one strange to me. My heart is broken with desire.
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28 | If you say, How cruel we will be to him! because the root of sin is clearly in him:
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29 | Be in fear of the sword, for the sword is the punishment for such things, so that you may be certain that there is a judge.
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