17

1“My spirit is consumed.

My days are extinct

and the grave is ready for me.

2Surely there are mockers with me.

My eye dwells on their provocation.

3“Now give a pledge. Be collateral for me with yourself.

Who is there who will strike hands with me?

4For you have hidden their heart from understanding,

therefore you will not exalt them.

5He who denounces his friends for plunder,

even the eyes of his children will fail.

6“But he has made me a byword of the people.

They spit in my face.

7My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow.

All my members are as a shadow.

8Upright men will be astonished at this.

The innocent will stir himself up against the godless.

9Yet the righteous will hold to his way.

He who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.

10But as for you all, come back.

I will not find a wise man among you.

11My days are past.

My plans are broken off,

as are the thoughts of my heart.

12They change the night into day,

saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness.

13If I look for Sheol as my house,

if I have spread my couch in the darkness,

14if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father,’

and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘My sister,’

15where then is my hope?

As for my hope, who will see it?

16Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol,

or descend together into the dust?”

18

1Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,

2“How long will you hunt for words?

Consider, and afterwards we will speak.

3Why are we counted as animals,

which have become unclean in your sight?

4You who tear yourself in your anger,

will the earth be forsaken for you?

Or will the rock be removed out of its place?

5“Yes, the light of the wicked will be put out.

The spark of his fire won’t shine.

6The light will be dark in his tent.

His lamp above him will be put out.

7The steps of his strength will be shortened.

His own counsel will cast him down.

8For he is cast into a net by his own feet,

and he wanders into its mesh.

9A snare will take him by the heel.

A trap will catch him.

10A noose is hidden for him in the ground,

a trap for him on the path.

11Terrors will make him afraid on every side,

and will chase him at his heels.

12His strength will be famished.

Calamity will be ready at his side.

13The members of his body will be devoured.

The firstborn of death will devour his members.

14He will be rooted out of the security of his tent.

He will be brought to the king of terrors.

15There will dwell in his tent that which is none of his.

Sulfur will be scattered on his habitation.

16His roots will be dried up beneath.

His branch will be cut off above.

17His memory will perish from the earth.

He will have no name in the street.

18He will be driven from light into darkness,

and chased out of the world.

19He will have neither son nor grandson among his people,

nor any remaining where he lived.

20Those who come after will be astonished at his day,

as those who went before were frightened.

21Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous.

This is the place of him who doesn’t know God.”

19

1Then Job answered,

2“How long will you torment me,

and crush me with words?

3You have reproached me ten times.

You aren’t ashamed that you attack me.

4If it is true that I have erred,

my error remains with myself.

5If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me,

and plead against me my reproach,

6know now that God has subverted me,

and has surrounded me with his net.

7“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard.

I cry for help, but there is no justice.

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

and has set darkness in my paths.

9He has stripped me of my glory,

and taken the crown from my head.

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

He has plucked my hope up like a tree.

11He has also kindled his wrath against me.

He counts me among his adversaries.

12His troops come on together,

build a siege ramp against me,

and encamp around my tent.

13“He has put my brothers far 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 maids consider me a stranger.

I am an alien 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“Have pity on me. Have pity on me, you my friends,

for the hand of God has touched me.

22Why do you persecute me as God,

and are 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 you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’

because the root of the matter is found in me,

29be afraid of the sword,

for wrath brings the punishments of the sword,

that you may know there is a judgment.”

20

1Then Zophar the Naamathite answered,

2“Therefore my thoughts answer me,

even by reason of my haste that is in me.

3I have heard the reproof which puts me to shame.

The spirit of my understanding answers me.

4Don’t you know this from old time,

since man was placed on earth,

5that the triumphing of the wicked is short,

the joy of the godless but for a moment?

6Though his height mount up to the heavens,

and his head reach to the clouds,

7yet he will perish forever like his own dung.

Those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’

8He will fly away as a dream, and will not be found.

Yes, he will be chased away like a vision of the night.

9The eye which saw him will see him no more,

neither will his place see him any more.

10His children will seek the favor of the poor.

His hands will give back his wealth.

11His bones are full of his youth,

but youth will lie down with him in the dust.

12“Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth,

though he hide it under his tongue,

13though he spare it, and will not let it go,

but keep it still within his mouth,

14yet his food in his bowels is turned.

It is cobra venom within him.

15He has swallowed down riches, and he will vomit them up again.

God will cast them out of his belly.

16He will suck cobra venom.

The viper’s tongue will kill him.

17He will not look at the rivers,

the flowing streams of honey and butter.

18He will restore that for which he labored, and will not swallow it down.

He will not rejoice according to the substance that he has gotten.

19For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor.

He has violently taken away a house, and he will not build it up.

20“Because he knew no quietness within him,

he will not save anything of that in which he delights.

21There was nothing left that he didn’t devour,

therefore his prosperity will not endure.

22In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress will overtake him.

The hand of everyone who is in misery will come on him.

23When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him.

It will rain on him while he is eating.

24He will flee from the iron weapon.

The bronze arrow will strike him through.

25He draws it out, and it comes out of his body.

Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver.

Terrors are on him.

26All darkness is laid up for his treasures.

An unfanned fire will devour him.

It will consume that which is left in his tent.

27The heavens will reveal his iniquity.

The earth will rise up against him.

28The increase of his house will depart.

They will rush away in the day of his wrath.

29This is the portion of a wicked man from God,

the heritage appointed to him by God.”