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Job Replies: I Know That My Redeemer Lives

19Then Job answered:
² ‘How long will you torment me,
   and break me in pieces with words?
³ These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
   are you not ashamed to wrong me?
⁴ And even if it is true that I have erred,
   my error remains with me.
⁵ If indeed you magnify yourselves against me,
   and make my humiliation an argument against me,
⁶ know then that God has put me in the wrong,
   and closed his net around me.
⁷ Even when I cry out, “Violence!” I am not answered;
   I call aloud, but there is no justice.
⁸ He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass,
   and he has set darkness upon my paths.
⁹ He has stripped my glory from me,
   and taken the crown from my head.
¹⁰ He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
   he has uprooted my hope like a tree.
¹¹ He has kindled his wrath against me,
   and counts me as his adversary.
¹² His troops come on together;
   they have thrown up siege-works^* against me,
   and encamp around my tent.

¹³ ‘He has put my family far from me,
   and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
¹⁴ My relatives and my close friends have failed me;
¹⁵   the guests in my house have forgotten me;
my serving-girls count me as a stranger;
   I have become an alien in their eyes.
¹⁶ I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
   I must myself plead with him.
¹⁷ My breath is repulsive to my wife;
   I am loathsome to my own family.
¹⁸ Even young children despise me;
   when I rise, they talk against me.
¹⁹ All my intimate friends abhor me,
   and those whom I loved have turned against me.
²⁰ My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh,
   and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
²¹ Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
   for the hand of God has touched me!
²² Why do you, like God, pursue me,
   never satisfied with my flesh?

²³ ‘O that my words were written down!
   O that they were inscribed in a book!
²⁴ O that with an iron pen and with lead
   they were engraved on a rock for ever!
²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer^* lives,
   and that at the last he^* will stand upon the earth;^*
26 and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
   then in^* my flesh I shall see God,^*
27 whom I shall see on my side,^*
   and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
   My heart faints within me!
²⁸ If you say, “How we will persecute him!”
   and, “The root of the matter is found in him”;
²⁹ be afraid of the sword,
   for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
   so that you may know there is a judgement.’

Zophar Speaks: Wickedness Receives Just Retribution

20Then Zophar the Naamathite answered:
² ‘Pay attention! My thoughts urge me to answer,
   because of the agitation within me.
³ I hear censure that insults me,
   and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.
⁴ Do you not know this from of old,
   ever since mortals were placed on earth,
⁵ that the exulting of the wicked is short,
   and the joy of the godless is but for a moment?
⁶ Even though they mount up high as the heavens,
   and their head reaches to the clouds,
⁷ they will perish for ever like their own dung;
   those who have seen them will say, “Where are they?”
⁸ They will fly away like a dream, and not be found;
   they will be chased away like a vision of the night.
⁹ The eye that saw them will see them no more,
   nor will their place behold them any longer.
¹⁰ Their children will seek the favour of the poor,
   and their hands will give back their wealth.
¹¹ Their bodies, once full of youth,
   will lie down in the dust with them.

¹² ‘Though wickedness is sweet in their mouth,
   though they hide it under their tongues,
¹³ though they are loath to let it go,
   and hold it in their mouths,
¹⁴ yet their food is turned in their stomachs;
   it is the venom of asps within them.
¹⁵ They swallow down riches and vomit them up again;
   God casts them out of their bellies.
¹⁶ They will suck the poison of asps;
   the tongue of a viper will kill them.
¹⁷ They will not look on the rivers,
   the streams flowing with honey and curds.
¹⁸ They will give back the fruit of their toil,
   and will not swallow it down;
from the profit of their trading
   they will get no enjoyment.
¹⁹ For they have crushed and abandoned the poor,
   they have seized a house that they did not build.

²⁰ ‘They knew no quiet in their bellies;
   in their greed they let nothing escape.
²¹ There was nothing left after they had eaten;
   therefore their prosperity will not endure.
²² In full sufficiency they will be in distress;
   all the force of misery will come upon them.
²³ To fill their belly to the full
   God^* will send his fierce anger into them,
   and rain it upon them as their food.^*
24 They will flee from an iron weapon;
   a bronze arrow will strike them through.
²⁵ It is drawn forth and comes out of their body,
   and the glittering point comes out of their gall;
   terrors come upon them.
²⁶ Utter darkness is laid up for their treasures;
   a fire fanned by no one will devour them;
   what is left in their tent will be consumed.
²⁷ The heavens will reveal their iniquity,
   and the earth will rise up against them.
²⁸ The possessions of their house will be carried away,
   dragged off on the day of God’s^* wrath.
²⁹ This is the portion of the wicked from God,
   the heritage decreed for them by God.’