Job to Bildad: My Redeemer Lives

¹Then Job answered,

²“How long will y’all torment me,

and will y’all crush me with words?

³Y’all have reproached me ten times.

Y’all aren’t ashamed to mistreat me.

⁴If it is true that I have erred,

my error remains with myself.

⁵If indeed y’all will magnify yourselves against me,

and y’all plead against me my reproach,

⁶Y’all should know now that God has subverted me,

and has surrounded me with ʜɪꜱ net.

⁷“I cry out ‘Violence!’ but I am not heard.

I cry for help, but there is no justice.

⁸Hᴇ has walled up my way so that I can’t pass,

and has set darkness in my paths.

⁹Hᴇ has stripped me of my glory,

and taken the crown from my head.

¹⁰Hᴇ has broken me down on every side, and I am gone.

Hᴇ has uprooted my hope up like a tree.

¹¹Hɪꜱ anger is kindled against me.

Hᴇ counts me among ʜɪꜱ enemies.

¹²Hɪꜱ troops come on together,

build a siege ramp against me,

and encamp around my tent.

¹³“Hᴇ has removed my relatives from me.

My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

¹⁴My relatives have gone away.

My familiar friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵Those who dwell in my house and my female servants consider me a stranger.

I am an foreigner in their sight.

¹⁶I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer.

I beg him with my mouth.

¹⁷My breath is offensive to my wife.

I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.

¹⁸Even young children despise me.

If I arise, they speak against me.

¹⁹All my familiar friends abhor me.

They whom I loved have turned against me.

²⁰My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh.

I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

²¹“Y’all have pity on me,

Y’all have pity on me, my friends,

for the hand of God has touched me.

²²Why do y’all persecute me as God does?

Are y’all not satisfied with my flesh?

²³“Oh that my words were now written!

Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

²⁴That with an iron pen and lead

they were engraved in the rock forever!

²⁵But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives.

In the end, he will stand upon the earth.

²⁶After my skin is destroyed,

then I will see God in my flesh,

²⁷whom I, even I, will see on my side.

My eyes will see, and not as a stranger.

“My heart is consumed within me.

²⁸If y’all say, ‘How we will persecute him!’

because the root of the matter is found in me,

²⁹Y’all should be afraid of the sword,

for wrath brings the punishments of the sword,

so that y’all may know there is a judgment.”