Job’s Sixth Speech: A Response to Bildad

1 ThenJob answered and said,

2 “How longwill youtorment me

and crush me with words?

3 These ten times youhave disgraced me;

youare not ashamed that youhave attackedme.

4 And what is more, if I have truly erred,

my error remains with me.

5 If indeed youmust magnify yourselves against me,

and youmust let my disgrace argue against me,

6 know then that God has wronged me

and has surrounded me with his net.

7 “Look, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ butI am not answered;

I cry out, butthere is no justice.

8 He has walled up my way so thatI cannot pass;

and he has set darkness upon my paths.

9 He has taken my glory from me,

and he has removed the crown ofmy head.

10 He has broken me down all around, and I am gone.

And he has uprooted my hope like a tree,

11 and he has kindled his wrath against me,

and he has counted me as one of his foes.

12 His troops have come together

and have thrown up their rampartagainst me

and have encamped around my tent.

13 “He has removed my kinsfolk from me,

and my acquaintances have onlyturned aside from me.

14 My relatives have failed,

and my close friends have forgotten me.

15 The sojourners inmy house and my slave women count me as a stranger;

I have become a foreigner in their eyes.

16 I call to my servant, buthe does not answer;

I must personallyplead with him.

17 My breath is repulsive to my wife,

and I am loathsome to my own family.

18 Little boys also despise me;

when I rise, thenthey talk against me.

19 All my intimate friendsabhor me,

and these whom I have loved have turned against me.

20 My bonescling to my skin and to my flesh,

and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

21 “Pity me, pity me, you my friends,

for God’s hand has touched me.

22 Why do youpursue me like God?

And are not satisfied with my flesh?

23 “O thatmy words could be written down!

O that they could be inscribed in a scroll!

24 That with a pen of iron and with lead

they might be engraved on a rock forever!

25 ButI myselfknow that my redeemer is alive,

and at the last he will stand up upon the earth.

26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed,

butfrommy flesh I will see God,

27 whom I will see for myself,

and whom my eyes will see and not a stranger.

My heart faints within me.

28 “If yousay, ‘How will we persecute him?’

And ‘The root of the trouble is found’ in me,

29 be afraid for yourselves because of the sword,

for wrath brings punishment bythe sword,

so that you may know that there is judgment.”