Job 18
Bildad's Second Response to Job
1Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:
2"How long before you stop talking? Speak sense if you want us to answer! 3Do you think we are cattle? Do you think we have no intelligence? 4You may tear your hair out in anger, but will that cause the earth to be abandoned? Will it make rocks fall from a cliff?
5"The truth remains that the light of the wicked will be snuffed out. The sparks of their fire will not glow. 6The light in their tent will grow dark. The lamp hanging above them will be quenched. 7The confident stride of the wicked will be shortened. Their own schemes will be their downfall.
8"The wicked walk into a net. They fall into a pit that's been dug in the path. 9A trap grabs them by the heel. A noose tightens around them. 10A snare lies hidden in the ground. A rope lies coiled on their path.
11"Terrors surround the wicked and trouble them at every step. 12Their vigor is depleted by hunger, and calamity waits for them to stumble. 13Disease eats their skin; death devours their limbs. 14They are torn from the security of their tent, and they are brought down to the king of terrors. 15The home of the wicked will disappear beneath a fiery barrage of burning sulfur. 16Their roots will dry up, and their branches will wither. 17All memory of their existence will perish from the earth. No one will remember them. 18They will be thrust from light into darkness, driven from the world. 19They will have neither children nor grandchildren, nor any survivor in their home country. 20People in the west are appalled at their fate; people in the east are horrified. 21They will say, `This was the home of a wicked person, the place of one who rejected God.' "
Job 19
Job's Sixth Speech: A Response to Bildad
1Then Job spoke again:
2"How long will you torture me? How long will you try to break me with your words? 3Ten times now you have meant to insult me. You should be ashamed of dealing with me so harshly. 4And even if I have sinned, that is my concern, not yours. 5You are trying to overcome me, using my humiliation as evidence of my sin, 6but it is God who has wronged me. I cannot defend myself, for I am like a city under siege.
7"I cry out for help, but no one hears me. I protest, but there is no justice. 8God has blocked my way and plunged my path into darkness. 9He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head. 10He has demolished me on every side, and I am finished. He has destroyed my hope. 11His fury burns against me; he counts me as an enemy. 12His troops advance. They build up roads to attack me. They camp all around my tent.
13"My relatives stay far away, and my friends have turned against me. 14My neighbors and my close friends are all gone. 15The members of my household have forgotten me. The servant girls consider me a stranger. I am like a foreigner to them. 16I call my servant, but he doesn't come; I even plead with him! 17My breath is repulsive to my wife. I am loathsome to my own family. 18Even young children despise me. When I stand to speak, they turn their backs on me. 19My close friends abhor me. Those I loved have turned against me. 20I have been reduced to skin and bones and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth.
21"Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for the hand of God has struck me. 22Why must you persecute me as God does? Why aren't you satisfied with my anguish?
23"Oh, that my words could be written. Oh, that they could be inscribed on a monument, 24carved with an iron chisel and filled with lead, engraved forever in the rock.
25"But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he will stand upon the earth at last. 26And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God[a]! 27I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!
28"How dare you go on persecuting me, saying, `It's his own fault'? 29I warn you, you yourselves are in danger of punishment for your attitude. Then you will know that there is judgment."
Footnotes:
Job 19:26 Or without my body I will see God.
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