Aa
Job’s Reply to Bildad
1Then Job answered:
2How long will you torment me
and crush me with words?
3You have humiliated me ten times now,
and you mistreat19:3 Hb obscure me without shame.19:3 Gn 31:7; Nm 14:22; Pr 25:8
4Even if it is true that I have sinned,
my mistake concerns only19:4 Lit mistake lives with me.
5If you really want to appear superior19:5 Ps 35:26; 38:16; 55:12 to me
and would use my disgrace as evidence against me,
6then understand that it is God who has wronged me
and caught me in his net.19:6 Jb 27:2; Lm 3:5; Ezk 12:13
7I cry out, “Violence!” but get no response;19:7 Jb 30:20; Lm 3:8; Hab 1:2
I call for help, but there is no justice.
8He has blocked19:8 Jb 3:23; Lm 3:9; Hs 2:6 my way so that I cannot pass through;
he has veiled my paths with darkness.19:8 Jb 29:3; 30:26; Is 59:9
9He has stripped me of my honor
and removed the crown from my head.
10He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined.19:10 Lit gone
He uproots my hope like a tree.19:10 Dt 28:63; Jb 24:20; Ps 52:5
11His anger19:11 Jb 16:9; 21:17; 40:11 burns against me,
and he regards me as one of his enemies.19:11 Jb 13:24; 33:10; Lm 2:5
12His troops advance together;
they construct a ramp19:12 Lit they raise up their way against me
and camp19:12 Ps 27:3; Is 29:3; Jr 50:29 around my tent.
13He has removed my brothers from me;
my acquaintances have abandoned me.19:13 Ps 31:11; 38:11; 88:8,18
14My relatives stop coming by,
and my close friends have forgotten me.
15My house guests19:15 Or The resident aliens in my household and female servants regard me as a stranger;
I am a foreigner in their sight.19:15 Gn 31:15; Ps 69:8; Mt 10:36
16I call for my servant, but he does not answer,
even if I beg him with my own mouth.
17My breath is offensive to my wife,
and my own family19:17 Lit and the sons of my belly finds me repulsive.
18Even young boys scorn me.
When I stand up, they mock me.19:18 2Kg 2:23; Jb 29:8
19All of my best friends19:19 Lit of the men of my council despise me,19:19 Jb 30:10; Ps 89:38; Am 5:10
and those I love have turned against me.19:19 Ps 41:9; 55:11–12; Jn 13:18
20My skin and my flesh cling to my bones;
I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth.
21Have mercy on me, my friends,19:21 Jb 6:14; Ps 38:11; Pr 17:17 have mercy,
for God’s hand19:21 Ru 1:13; Jb 12:9; Is 41:20 has struck me.19:21 Jb 1:11; 2:5; 6:7
22Why do you persecute me as God does?
Will you never get enough of my flesh?

23I wish that my words were written down,
that they were recorded on a scroll
24or were inscribed in stone forever
by an iron stylus and lead!
25But I know that my Redeemer lives,19:25 Or know my living Redeemer19:25 Jb 16:19; Pr 23:11; Jr 50:34
and at the end he will stand on the dust.19:25 Is 44:6; 48:12; Rv 1:17–18
26Even after my skin has been destroyed,19:26 Lit skin which they destroyed, or skin they destroyed in this way
yet I will see God in19:26 Or apart from my flesh.19:26 Ps 17:15; Is 6:1; 1Co 13:12
27I will see him myself;
my eyes will look at him, and not as a stranger.19:27 Or not a stranger
My heart longs19:27 Lit My kidneys grow faint within me.19:27 Ps 73:26; 84:2; 119:81

28If you say, “How will we pursue him,
since the root of the problem lies with him?” 19:28 Some Hb mss, LXX, Vg; other Hb mss read me
29then be afraid of the sword,
because wrath brings punishment by the sword,19:29 Jb 15:22; Is 66:16; Ezk 32:10
so that you may know there is a judgment.