Testimonia — Early Christian Bible Commentary

1Then Job answered,

2“How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?

3You have reproached me ten times. You aren’t ashamed that you attack me.

4If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.

5If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach,

6know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.

7“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice.

8He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths.

9He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.

10He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. He has plucked my hope up like a tree.

11He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.

12His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent.

13“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

14My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.

15Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.

16I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth.

17My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.

18Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.

19All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.

20My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

21“Have pity on me. Have pity on me, you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me.

22Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

23“Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

24That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!

25But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth.

26After my skin is destroyed, then I will see God in my flesh,

27whom I, even I, will see on my side. My eyes will see, and not as a stranger. “My heart is consumed within me.

28If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ because the root of the matter is found in me,

29be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.”