Job’s Sixth Speech: A Response to Bildad

19  Then[fn] Job answered and said,

• 2 [fn] will you[fn] torment me[fn] and crush me with words?
• 3 [fn] have disgraced me; you[fn] are not ashamed that you[fn] have attacked[fn] me.
• 4 if I have truly erred, my error remains with me.
• 5 [fn] must magnify yourselves against me, and you[fn] must let my disgrace argue against me,
• 6  and has surrounded me with his net.
• 7 [fn] I am not answered; I cry out, but[fn] there is no justice.
• 8 [fn] I cannot pass; and he has set darkness upon my paths.
• 9  and he has removed the crown of[fn] my head.
• 10  And he has uprooted my hope like a tree,
• 11  and[fn]
• 12  and have thrown up their rampart[fn] against me
• and have encamped around my tent.
• 13  and my acquaintances have only[fn] turned aside from me.
• 14  and my close friends have forgotten me.
• 15 [fn] my house and my slave women count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes.
• 16 [fn] he does not answer; I must[fn] plead with him.
• 17  and I am loathsome to[fn]
• 18  when I rise, then[fn] they talk against me.
• 19 [fn] abhor me, and these whom I have loved have turned against me.
• 20 [fn] cling to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
• 21  for God’s hand has touched me.
• 22 [fn] pursue me like God? And are not satisfied with my flesh?
• 23 [fn] my words could be written down! [fn]
• 24 That with a pen of iron and with lead they might be engraved on a rock forever!
• 25 [fn] I myself[fn] know that my redeemer is alive, and at the last he will stand up upon[fn]
• 26  but[fn] from[fn] my flesh I will see God,
• 27 [fn] and whom my eyes will see and not a stranger.[fn]
• [fn]
• 28 [fn] say, ‘How will we persecute him?’ And ‘The root of the trouble is found’ in me,[fn]
• 29 [fn] for wrath brings punishment by[fn] the sword,
• so that you may know that there is judgment.”