Job: My Redeemer Lives

1And Job answered and said:

2“Until when will you⁺ afflict my soul,

and crush me with words?

3These ten times you⁺ have reproached me;

are you⁺ not ashamed that you⁺ have done wrong to me?

4And if I have truly gone astray,

my straying lodges with me.

5If you⁺ would truly magnify yourselves over me

and plead my reproach against me,

6then know that God has wronged me

and has thrown His net over me.

7Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ And I am not answered.

I cry for help, and there is no justice.

8My way He has walled off, and I cannot pass over;

and upon my paths He has set darkness.

9My honor He has stripped from me,

and He has turned aside the crown from my head.

10He tears me down round about and I depart,

and He pulls out my hope like a tree.

11And He has kindled against me His anger,

and He reckons me for Himself among His adversaries.

12His troops come as one,

and they build up their ramp against me,

and they encamp all around my tent.

13My brothers He has put far from me,

and my acquaintances surely are estranged from me.

14Those near to me have ceased,

and those known to me have forgotten me.

15Those who sojourn in my house, and my maidservants, they reckon me as a stranger;

I have become a foreigner in their eyes.

16I call to my servant, and he does not answer;

with my mouth I seek favor from him.

17My breath is strange to my wife,

and I am loathsome to the sons of my womb.

18Even little boys despise me;

I arise, and they speak against me.

19All the men of my counsel abhor me;

and those I love have turned against me.

20My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh,

and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

21Pity me, pity me, you⁺ my friends,

for the hand of God has touched me.

22Why do you⁺ pursue me as God does?

Are you⁺ not even satisfied with my flesh?

23Who will grant now that my words should be written?

Who will grant that they be inscribed in a book,

24with a pen of iron and with lead,

they would be engraved forever in the rock!

25And I know that my Redeemer† lives,

and in the end He will stand upon the dust.†

26And after they strike off my skin thus,

yet in my flesh† I will see God.

27He whom I will see for myself,

indeed my eyes will see, and not a stranger.

My kidneys yearn in my bosom!

28If you⁺ should say, ‘How we will pursue after him,’

and ‘The root of the matter is found with him,’†

29be afraid for yourselves of the face of the sword,

for from wrath is the punishment of the sword,

so that you⁺ may know there is a judgment.”