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Job: My Redeemer Lives

¹ Then Job answered:² “How long will you torment me and crush me with words?³ Ten times now you have reproached me; you shamelessly mistreat me.⁴ Even if I have truly gone astray, my error concerns me alone.⁵ If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and use my disgrace against me,⁶ then understand that it is God who has wronged me and drawn His net around me.⁷ Though I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice.

⁸ He has blocked my way so I cannot pass; He has veiled my paths with darkness.⁹ He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.¹⁰ He tears me down on every side until I am gone; He uproots my hope like a tree.¹¹ His anger burns against me, and He counts me among His enemies.¹² His troops advance together; they construct a ramp against me and encamp around my tent.¹³ He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me.¹⁴ My kinsmen have failed me, and my friends have forgotten me.¹⁵ My guests and maidservants count me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight.¹⁶ I call for my servant, but he does not answer, though I implore him with my own mouth.¹⁷ My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family.¹⁸ Even little boys scorn me; when I appear, they deride me.¹⁹ All my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me.²⁰ My skin and flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.²¹ Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.²² Why do you persecute me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?

²³ I wish that my words were recorded and inscribed in a book,²⁴ by an iron stylus on lead, or chiseled in stone forever.²⁵ But I know that my Redeemer^(a) lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth^(a).²⁶ Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh^(a) I will see God.²⁷ I will see Him for myself; my eyes will behold Him, and not as a stranger. How my heart yearns within me!²⁸ If you say, ‘How shall we persecute him, since the root of the matter lies with him^(a)?’²⁹ then you should fear the sword yourselves, because wrath brings punishment by the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.”