Job's Faith That God Will Vindicate Him

191 Then Job answered: 2 "How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with words? 3 These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me? 4 And even if it is true that I have erred, my error remains with me. 5 If indeed you magnify yourselves against me, and make my humiliation an argument against me, 6 know then that God has put me in the wrong, and closed his net around me. 7 Even when I cry out, "Violence!' I am not answered; I call aloud, but there is no justice.

8 He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths. 9 He has stripped my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head. 10 He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, he has uprooted my hope like a tree. 11 He has kindled his wrath against me, and counts me as his adversary. 12 His troops come on together; they have thrown up siegeworks against me, and encamp around my tent. 13 "He has put my family far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. 14 My relatives and my close friends have failed me; 15 the guests in my house have forgotten me; my serving girls count me as a stranger; I have become an alien in their eyes. 16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must myself plead with him. 17 My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family. 18 Even young children despise me; when I rise, they talk against me. 19 All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me. 20 My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. 21 Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! 22 Why do you, like God, pursue me, never satisfied with my flesh?

23 "O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! 24 O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever! 25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; 26 and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, 27 whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me! 28 If you say, "How we will persecute him!' and, "The root of the matter is found in him'; 29 be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, so 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 said: 3 "Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night that said, "A man-child is conceived.' 4 Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, or light shine on it. 5 Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds settle upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. 6 That night-let thick darkness seize it! let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. 7 Yes, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry be heard in it. 8 Let those curse it who curse the Sea, those who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan. 9 Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none; may it not see the eyelids of the morning- 10 because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb, and hide trouble from my eyes.

11 "Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire? 12 Why were there knees to receive me, or breasts for me to suck? 13 Now I would be lying down and quiet; I would be asleep; then I would be at rest 14 with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuild ruins for themselves, 15 or with princes who have gold, who fill their houses with silver. 16 Or why was I not buried like a stillborn child, like an infant that never sees the light? 17 There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. 18 There the prisoners are at ease together; they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. 19 The small and the great are there, and the slaves are free from their masters.

20 "Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, 21 who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures; 22 who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they find the grave? 23 Why is light given to one who cannot see the way, whom God has fenced in? 24 For my sighing comes like my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. 25 Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. 26 I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes."