My Redeemer Lives
Then Job answered and said,
2 “How long will you torment my soul
And crush me with words?
3 These ten times you have dishonored me;
You are not ashamed that you wrong me.
4 Even if I have truly erred,
My error lodges with me.
5 If truly you amagnify yourselves against me
And argue my disgrace to me,
6 Know then that aGod has wronged me
And has closed bHis net around me.
7 “Behold, aI cry, ‘Violence!’ but I get no answer;
I shout for help, but there is no justice.
8 He has awalled up my way so that I cannot pass,
And He has put bdarkness on my paths.
9 He has astripped my honor from me
And removed the bcrown from my head.
10 He abreaks me down on every side, and I am gone;
And He has uprooted my bhope clike a tree.
11 He has also akindled His anger against me
And bcounted me as His adversary.
12 His atroops come together,
And bbuild up their way against me
And camp around my tent.
13 “He has aremoved my brothers far from me,
And my bacquaintances are completely estranged from me.
14 My relatives have failed,
And my afamiliar friends have forgotten me.
15 Those who sojourn in my house and my maidservants count me a stranger.
I am a foreigner in their sight.
16 I call to my servant, but he does not answer;
I have to implore him with my mouth.
17 My breath is offensive to my wife,
And I am loathsome to my own brothers.
18 Even young children reject me;
I rise up, and they speak against me.
19 All the men of my acounsel abhor me,
And those I love have turned against me.
20 My abone clings to my skin and my flesh,
And I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.
21 Pity me, pity me, O you my friends,
For the ahand of God has smitten me.
22 Why do you apersecute me as God does,
And are not satisfied with my flesh?
23 “Oh that my words were written!
Oh that they were ainscribed in a book!
24 That with an iron stylus and lead
They were engraved in the rock forever!
25 As for me, I know that amy Redeemer lives,
And at the last He will rise up over the dust of this world.
26 Even after my skin is destroyed,
Yet from my flesh I shall abehold God,
27 Whom I myself shall behold,
And whom my eyes will see and not another.
My heart afaints within me!
28 If you say, ‘How shall we apersecute him?’
‘And the root of the matter is found in him?’
29 Then be afraid of athe sword for yourselves,
For wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
So that you may know bthere is judgment.”