19:1 Then Job answered,
19:2 “How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?
19:3 You have reproached me ten times. You aren’t ashamed that you attack me.
19:4 If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.
19:5 If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach;
19:6 know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.
19:7 “Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice.
19:8 He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths.
19:9 He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.
19:10 He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. My hope he has plucked up like a tree.
19:11 He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.
19:12 His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent.
19:13 “He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
19:14 My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.
19:15 Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.
19:16 I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth.
19:17 My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.
19:18 Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.
19:19 All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.
19:20 My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
19:21 “Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends; for the hand of God has touched me.
19:22 Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?
19:23 “Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
19:24 That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!
19:25 But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth.
19:26 After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God,
19:27 Whom I, even I, shall see on my side. My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger. “My heart is consumed within me.
19:28 If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ because the root of the matter is found in me,
19:29 be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.”
20:1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered,
20:2 “Therefore do my thoughts give answer to me, even by reason of my haste that is in me.
20:3 I have heard the reproof which puts me to shame. The spirit of my understanding answers me.
20:4 Don’t you know this from old time, since man was placed on earth,
20:5 that the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment?
20:6 Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds,
20:7 yet he shall perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him shall say, ‘Where is he?’
20:8 He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found. Yes, he shall be chased away like a vision of the night.
20:9 The eye which saw him shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more see him.
20:10 His children shall seek the favor of the poor. His hands shall give back his wealth.
20:11 His bones are full of his youth, but youth shall lie down with him in the dust.
20:12 “Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue,
20:13 though he spare it, and will not let it go, but keep it still within his mouth;
20:14 yet his food in his bowels is turned. It is cobra venom within him.
20:15 He has swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again. God will cast them out of his belly.
20:16 He shall suck cobra venom. The viper’s tongue shall kill him.
20:17 He shall not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter.
20:18 That for which he labored he shall restore, and shall not swallow it down. According to the substance that he has gotten, he shall not rejoice.
20:19 For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor. He has violently taken away a house, and he shall not build it up.
20:20 “Because he knew no quietness within him, he shall not save anything of that in which he delights.
20:21 There was nothing left that he didn’t devour, therefore his prosperity shall not endure.
20:22 In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress shall overtake him. The hand of everyone who is in misery shall come on him.
20:23 When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him. It will rain on him while he is eating.
20:24 He shall flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow shall strike him through.
20:25 He draws it forth, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him.
20:26 All darkness is laid up for his treasures. An unfanned fire shall devour him. It shall consume that which is left in his tent.
20:27 The heavens shall reveal his iniquity. The earth shall rise up against him.
20:28 The increase of his house shall depart. They shall rush away in the day of his wrath.
20:29 This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God.”