Job
Chapter 19
Job answers his three friends again. He tells them their words are crushing him, and he lays out how God has torn down his life: his honor gone, his body wasted, his family and servants and friends turned away. In the middle of this he says he knows his Redeemer lives and that he will see God with his own eyes. He ends by warning the friends that they themselves face judgment.
Plain reading written for preteens. Clear and complete, at about a fifth grade reading level.
Then Job answered and said,
1Then Job answered:
2How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?
2How long will you torment me? How long will you crush me with your words?
3These ten times have ye reproached me: ye are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me.
3Ten times now you have insulted me. You attack me and feel no shame about it.
4And be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.
4Even if I really have gone wrong, that mistake is mine alone to carry.
5If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach:
5Maybe you want to make yourselves look better than me, and use my disgrace against me.
6Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with his net.
6Then understand this: God is the one who has wronged me. He has closed his net around me.
7Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment.
7I cry out, “I am being hurt!” and no one answers. I shout for help, but no justice comes.
8He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths.
8He has blocked my road so I cannot get through. He has covered my paths with darkness.
9He hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.
9He has stripped away my honor. He has taken the crown off my head.
10He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath he removed like a tree.
10He tears me down on every side until I am gone. He pulls up my hope like a tree.
11He hath also kindled his wrath against me, and he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies.
11His anger burns against me. He counts me as one of his enemies.
12His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and encamp round about my tabernacle.
12His armies come together. They pile up dirt to attack me and camp all around my tent.
13He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.
13He has pushed my brothers far away from me. The people I knew act like strangers now.
14My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me.
14My relatives have given up on me. My close friends have forgotten me.
15They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight.
15Guests in my house and my servant girls treat me as a stranger. To them I am a foreigner.
16I called my servant, and he gave me no answer; I intreated him with my mouth.
16I call my servant, and he does not answer, even when I beg him with my own mouth.
17My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children’s sake of mine own body.
17My breath disgusts my wife. My own family cannot stand to be near me.
18Yea, young children despised me; I arose, and they spake against me.
18Even little children look down on me. When I stand up, they make fun of me.
19All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me.
19All my closest friends hate the sight of me. The people I loved have turned against me.
20My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.
20I am nothing but skin and bones. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.
21Have pity on me, my friends, have pity. The hand of God has struck me.
22Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?
22Why do you hunt me down the way God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?
23Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!
23I wish someone would write down my words. I wish they were carved into a book.
24That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!
24I wish they were cut with an iron tool and filled with lead, or chiseled in rock forever.
In Job's time, important words were cut into stone with an iron tool. Melted lead was poured into the cut letters so they stood out and lasted.
25For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
25But I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end he will stand upon the earth.
A “redeemer” was a close relative whose job was to rescue family members in trouble: pay their debts, buy back their land, or speak up for them in court.
26And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:
26Even after my skin has been destroyed, I will still see God in my body.
27Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
27I will see him myself. My own eyes will see him, and he will not be a stranger. My heart aches with longing inside me.
The KJV says “my reins,” an old word for the kidneys. Writers then used it the way we use “heart,” meaning a person's deepest feelings.
28But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?
28You should not say, “Let us keep after him, since the trouble starts with him.”
29Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment.
29You should be afraid of the sword yourselves. Anger like that brings punishment by the sword. Then you will know there is a judgment.
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