Book of Job, Chapter 19
Job 19 NWT - New World TranslationChapter 19 of Job—New World Translation (NWT)
- ¶ And Job proceeded to answer and say:
- ¶ “How long will YOU men keep irritating my soul1
And keep crushing me with words?2 - ¶ These ten times YOU proceeded to rebuke me;
YOU are not ashamed [that] YOU deal so hard with me.3 - ¶ And, granted that I have made a mistake,4
It is with me that my mistake will lodge.[a] - ¶ If for a fact against me YOU men do put on great airs,5
And YOU show my reproach to be proper against me,6 - ¶ KNOW, then, that God[b] himself has misled me,
And his hunting net he has closed in upon me.7 - ¶ Look! I keep crying out, ‘Violence!’ but I get no answer;8
I keep crying for help, but there is no justice.9 - ¶ My very path he has blocked with a stone wall,10 and I cannot pass over;
And upon my roadways he puts darkness itself.11 - ¶ My own glory he has stripped from me,12
And he takes away the crown of my head. - ¶ He pulls me down on all sides, and I go away;
And he pulls my hope out just like a tree. - ¶ His anger also grows hot against me,13
And he keeps reckoning me as an adversary of his. - ¶ Unitedly his troops come and cast up their way against me,14
And they camp round about my tent. - ¶ My own brothers he has put far away from me,15
And the very ones knowing me have even turned aside from me. - ¶ My intimate acquaintances[c] have ceased to be,16
And those known by me have themselves forgotten me, - ¶ Those residing as aliens in my house;17 and my slave girls themselves reckon me as a stranger;
A real foreigner I have become in their eyes. - ¶ To my servant I have called, but he does not answer.
With my own mouth I keep imploring him for compassion. - ¶ My breath[d] itself has become loathsome to my wife,18
And I have become foul-smelling to the sons of my [mother’s] belly. - ¶ Also young boys themselves have rejected me;19
Let me but rise up, and they begin to speak against me. - ¶ All the men of my intimate group detest me,20
And those whom I loved have turned against me.21 - ¶ To my skin and to my flesh my bones actually cleave,22
And I escape with the skin of my teeth.[e] - ¶ Show me some favor, show me some favor, O YOU my companions,23
For God’s[f] own hand has touched me.24 - ¶ Why do YOU men keep persecuting me as God[g] does,25
And not become satisfied with my very flesh? - ¶ O that now my words were written down!
O that in a book they were even inscribed! - ¶ With an iron stylus26 and [with] lead,
Forever in the rock O that they were hewn! - ¶ And I myself well know that my redeemer[h]27 is alive,
And that, coming after [me], he will rise up28 over [the] dust. - ¶ And after my skin, [which] they have skinned off,—this!
Yet reduced in my flesh[i] I shall behold God,[j] - ¶ Whom even I shall behold for myself,29
And [whom] my very eyes will certainly see, but not some stranger.
My kidneys have failed deep within me. - ¶ For YOU men say, ‘Why do we keep persecuting30 him?’
When the very root of [the] matter is found in me.[k] - ¶ Be frightened for yourselves because of a sword,31
For the sword means a raging against errors,
In order that YOU men may know there is a judge.”[l]32
FOOTNOTES
- ^ LXX adds: “by saying a thing that was not necessary, and my sayings (utterances) are mistaken (err) and not seasonable (timely).”
- ^ “God.” Heb., ʼElohʹah, sing. of ʼElo·himʹ.
- ^ Or, “My relations.”
- ^ “My breath (spirit).” Heb., ru·chiʹ; Lat., haʹli·tum.
- ^ “And my flesh becomes hairless in my teeth,” by another derivation of the verb and some corrections of M. Compare 13:14.
- ^ “God’s.” Heb., ʼElohʹah.
- ^ “God.” Heb., ʼEl.
- ^ “My redeemer (repurchaser).” By extension of thought, “my avenger (vindicator).” Heb., goʹʼali; Lat., re·demʹptor. See Nu 35:21; Ps 19:14; Pr 23:11; Isa 63:16; Jer 50:34.
- ^ Lit., “Yet out of my flesh,” or, “Yet apart from my flesh.”
- ^ “God.” Heb., ʼElohʹah.
- ^ According to M; LXX, “we shall find in him.”
- ^ “There is a judge,” T and by a different vowel pointing of M (see 1Sa 24:15); others make it read, “there is an Almighty.”
REFERENCES
- ^ Ps 42:10
- ^ Ps 55:21; Pr 12:18; Jm 3:8
- ^ Jb 6:14; Pr 18:24; Mt 7:12
- ^ Ro 3:23
- ^ Ps 38:16
- ^ Ps 69:26
- ^ Ps 66:11; La 1:13
- ^ Ps 22:2; Hab 1:2
- ^ Lu 18:7
- ^ Jb 3:23; Ps 88:8; La 3:7
- ^ Is 50:10; Je 13:16
- ^ Ps 89:44
- ^ Jb 13:24
- ^ Jb 30:12
- ^ Ps 31:11; 38:11; 69:8
- ^ Ps 38:11
- ^ Jb 31:32
- ^ Jb 2:9
- ^ 2Ki 2:23
- ^ Jb 17:6; Ps 88:8
- ^ Ps 109:5
- ^ Jb 30:30; 33:21; Ps 102:5; La 4:8
- ^ Mt 5:7; 1Pe 3:8
- ^ Jb 1:11; Ps 38:2
- ^ Jb 2:10; Ps 69:26
- ^ Je 17:1
- ^ Jb 14:14; Ps 19:14; 69:18; 103:4; Pr 23:11; Mt 20:28
- ^ Mr 10:45; Ro 3:24; 1Co 1:30
- ^ Ps 17:15
- ^ Ps 69:26
- ^ De 32:41
- ^ Ps 58:11; Mt 7:1; Ro 14:4; Jm 4:12
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