Job’s Reply to Bildad

1Then Job answered:

2How long will you torment me

and crush me with words?

3You have humiliated me ten times now,

and you mistreat a me without shame. b

4Even if it is true that I have sinned,

my mistake concerns only c me.

5If you really want to appear superior d to me

and would use my disgrace as evidence against me,

6then understand that it is God who has wronged me

and caught me in His net. e

7I cry out: “Violence!” but get no response; f

I call for help, but there is no justice.

8He has blocked g my way so that I cannot pass through;

He has veiled my paths with darkness. h

9He has stripped me of my honor

and removed the crown from my head.

10He tears me down on every side so that I am ruined. i

He uproots my hope like a tree. j

11His anger k burns against me,

and He regards me as one of His enemies. l

12His troops advance together;

they construct a ramp m against me

and camp n around my tent.

13He has removed my brothers from me;

my acquaintances have abandoned me. o

14My relatives stop coming by,

and my close friends have forgotten me.

15My house guests p and female servants regard me as a stranger;

I am a foreigner in their sight. q

16I call for my servant, but he does not answer,

even if I beg him with my own mouth.

17My breath is offensive to my wife,

and my own family r finds me repulsive.

18Even young boys scorn me.

When I stand up, they mock me. s

19All of my best friends t despise me, u

and those I love have turned against me. v

20My skin and my flesh cling to my bones;

I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

21Have mercy on me, my friends, w have mercy,

for God’s hand x has struck me. y

22Why do you persecute me as God does?

Will you never get enough of my flesh?

23I wish that my words were written down,

that they were recorded on a scroll

24or were inscribed in stone forever

by an iron stylus and lead!

25But I know my living Redeemer, z  aa

and He will stand on the dust ab at last. ac  ad

26Even after my skin has been destroyed, ae

yet I will see God in af my flesh. ag

27I will see Him myself;

my eyes will look at Him, and not as a stranger. ah

My heart longs ai within me. aj

28If you say, “How will we pursue him,

since the root of the problem lies with him? ” ak

29then be afraid of the sword,

because wrath brings punishment by the sword, al

so that you may know there is a judgment.