19:2 “How much longer will you torment me and oppress me with your words?
19:3 You have reproached me now ten times, and you mistreat me shamelessly.
19:4 And even if it were true that I have erred, the fault would be completely mine.
19:5 “If indeed you want to exalt yourselves above me and use my humiliation against me,
19:6 know that God has wronged me and cast his net over me.
19:7 Even when I protest that I have been wronged, no one comes forward to support me, and I receive no justice when I cry out for help.
19:8 “He has blocked my path so that I cannot pass, and he has shrouded my way in darkness.
19:9 He has deprived me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.
19:10 He assails me on every side until I succumb; he has uprooted my hope like a tree.
19:11 He has inflamed his anger against me and looks upon me as his enemy.
19:12 His troops move forward as a single force; they have surrounded me with siegeworks and encamped around my tent.
19:13 “He has caused my brethren to turn against me; my friends are completely estranged from me.
19:14 My relatives and my companions now ignore me, and those who were guests in my house have forgotten me.
19:15 Even my serving girls regard me as a stranger; I have become an alien in their eyes.
19:16 When I summon my servant, he does not respond, no matter how much I plead with him.
19:17 “My wife finds my breath repulsive; my stench is loathsome to my relatives.
19:18 Even young children despise me; when I approach, they turn their backs on me.
19:19 All of my dearest friends abhor me; those I love have turned against me.
19:20 I have become just skin and bones and have escaped with only my gums.
19:21 “Have pity on me, my friends, have pity on me, for the hand of God has touched me.
19:22 Must you pursue me just as God does? Will not my flesh ever be enough to satisfy you?
19:23 “How I wish that my words might be written down and inscribed on a scroll!
19:24 How I wish that with an iron chisel and with lead they were engraved in stone forever!
19:25 “But I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the end he will stand upon the dust.
19:26 After my awakening, he will call me close to him, and then from my own flesh I will see God.
19:27 I will see him with my own eyes; my eyes, not those of another, will behold him. How my heart within me yearns for that moment!
19:28 “As for you who say, ‘How we will persecute him, for the root of the trouble lies in him,’
19:29 beware of the sword that is pointed toward you, for the avenger of wickedness is the sword, and then you will know that there is indeed a judgment.”
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