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19
1 Then Job answered:
2 “How long will you torment me and crush me with your 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 lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth.
26 Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh 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, ‘Let us persecute him, since the root of the matter lies with him,’
29 then you should fear the sword yourselves, because wrath brings punishment by the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.”

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