Chapter 19

  And Job answereth and saith: --  

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  Till when do ye afflict my soul, And bruise me with words?  

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  These ten times ye put me to shame, ye blush not. Ye make yourselves strange to me --  

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  And also -- truly, I have erred, With me doth my error remain.  

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  If, truly, over me ye magnify yourselves, And decide against me my reproach;  

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  Know now, that God turned me upside down, And His net against me hath set round,  

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  Lo, I cry out -- violence, and am not answered, I cry aloud, and there is no judgment.  

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  My way He hedged up, and I pass not over, And on my paths darkness He placeth.  

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  Mine honour from off me He hath stripped, And He turneth the crown from my head.  

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  He breaketh me down round about, and I go, And removeth like a tree my hope.  

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  And He kindleth against me His anger, And reckoneth me to Him as His adversaries.  

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  Come in do His troops together, And they raise up against me their way, And encamp round about my tent.  

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  My brethren from me He hath put far off, And mine acquaintances surely Have been estranged from me.  

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  Ceased have my neighbours And my familiar friends have forgotten me,  

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  Sojourners of my house and my maids, For a stranger reckon me: An alien I have been in their eyes.  

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  To my servant I have called, And he doth not answer, With my mouth I make supplication to him.  

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  My spirit is strange to my wife, And my favours to the sons of my [mother's] womb.  

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  Also sucklings have despised me, I rise, and they speak against me.  

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  Abominate me do all the men of my counsel, And those I have loved, Have been turned against me.  

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  To my skin and to my flesh Cleaved hath my bone, And I deliver myself with the skin of my teeth.  

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  Pity me, pity me, ye my friends, For the hand of God hath stricken against me.  

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  Why do you pursue me as God? And with my flesh are not satisfied?  

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  Who doth grant now, That my words may be written? Who doth grant that in a book they may be graven?  

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  With a pen of iron and lead -- For ever in a rock they may be hewn.  

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  That -- I have known my Redeemer, The Living and the Last, For the dust he doth rise.  

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  And after my skin hath compassed this [body], Then from my flesh I see God:  

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  Whom I -- I see on my side, And mine eyes have beheld, and not a stranger, Consumed have been my reins in my bosom.  

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  But ye say, 'Why do we pursue after him?' And the root of the matter hath been found in me.  

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  Be ye afraid because of the sword, For furious [are] the punishments of the sword, That ye may know that [there is] a judgment.  

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