Job's Faith That God Will Vindicate Him

191 Then Job answered, 2 “How long will you torment me,
and crush me with words? 3 You have reproached me ten times.
You aren’t ashamed that you attack me. 4 If it is true that I have erred,
my error remains with myself. 5 If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me,
and plead against me my reproach; 6 know now that God has subverted me,
and has surrounded me with his net. 7 “Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard.
I cry for help, but there is no justice.

8 He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass,
and has set darkness in my paths. 9 He has stripped me of my glory,
and taken the crown from my head. 10 He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone.
My hope he has plucked up like a tree. 11 He has also kindled his wrath against me.
He counts me among his adversaries. 12 His troops come on together,
build a siege ramp against me,
and encamp around my tent. 13 “He has put my brothers far from me.
My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. 14 My relatives have gone away.
My familiar friends have forgotten me. 15 Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger.
I am an alien in their sight. 16 I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer.
I beg him with my mouth. 17 My breath is offensive to my wife.
I am loathsome to the children of my own mother. 18 Even young children despise me.
If I arise, they speak against me. 19 All my familiar friends abhor me.
They whom I loved have turned against me. 20 My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh.
I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. 21 “Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends;
for the hand of God has touched me. 22 Why do you persecute me as God,
and are not satisfied with my flesh?

23 “Oh that my words were now written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book! 24 That with an iron pen and lead
they were engraved in the rock forever! 25 But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives.
In the end, he will stand upon the earth. 26 After my skin is destroyed,
then in my flesh shall I see God, 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. 28 If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’
because the root of the matter is found in me, 29 be afraid of the sword,
for wrath brings the punishments of the sword,
that you may know there is a judgment.”

Job Bewails His Birth

31 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. 2 Job answered: 3 “Let the day perish in which I was born,
the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’ 4 Let that day be darkness.
Don’t let God from above seek for it,
neither let the light shine on it. 5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own.
Let a cloud dwell on it.
Let all that makes black the day terrify it. 6 As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it.
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year.
Let it not come into the number of the months. 7 Behold, let that night be barren.
Let no joyful voice come therein. 8 Let them curse it who curse the day,
who are ready to rouse up leviathan. 9 Let the stars of its twilight be dark.
Let it look for light, but have none,
neither let it see the eyelids of the morning, 10 because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb,
nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.

11 “Why didn’t I die from the womb?
Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me? 12 Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breast, that I should suck? 13 For now should I have lain down and been quiet.
I should have slept, then I would have been at rest, 14 with kings and counselors of the earth,
who built up waste places for themselves; 15 or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver: 16 or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been,
as infants who never saw light. 17 There the wicked cease from troubling.
There the weary are at rest. 18 There the prisoners are at ease together.
They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster. 19 The small and the great are there.
The servant is free from his master.

20 “Why is light given to him who is in misery,
life to the bitter in soul, 21 Who long for death, but it doesn’t come;
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, 22 who rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad, when they can find the grave? 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid,
whom God has hedged in? 24 For my sighing comes before I eat.
My groanings are poured out like water. 25 For the thing which I fear comes on me,
That which I am afraid of comes to me. 26 I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest;
but trouble comes.”