Job 19

• 1. Then Job spoke again:
• 2. "How long will you torture me? How long will you try to break me with your words?
• 3. Ten times now you have meant to insult me. You should be ashamed of dealing with me so harshly.
• 4. And even if I have sinned, that is my concern, not yours.
• 5. You are trying to overcome me, using my humiliation as evidence of my sin,
• 6. but 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.
• 8. God has blocked my way and plunged my path into darkness.
• 9. He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.
• 10. He has demolished me on every side, and I am finished. He has destroyed my hope.
• 11. His fury burns against me; he counts me as an enemy.
• 12. His 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.
• 14. My neighbors and my close friends are all gone.
• 15. The members of my household have forgotten me. The servant girls consider me a stranger. I am like a foreigner to them.
• 16. I call my servant, but he doesn't come; I even plead with him!
• 17. My breath is repulsive to my wife. I am loathsome to my own family.
• 18. Even young children despise me. When I stand to speak, they turn their backs on me.
• 19. My close friends abhor me. Those I loved have turned against me.
• 20. I 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.
• 22. Why 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,
• 24. carved 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.
• 26. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God!
• 27. I 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'?
• 29. I warn you, you yourselves are in danger of punishment for your attitude. Then you will know that there is judgment."

Job 20

• 1. Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:
• 2. "I must reply because I am greatly disturbed.
• 3. I have had to endure your insults, but now my spirit prompts me to reply.
• 4. "Don't you realize that ever since people were first placed on the earth,
• 5. the triumph of the wicked has been short-lived and the joy of the godless has been only temporary?
• 6. Though the godless man's pride reaches to the heavens and though his head touches the clouds,
• 7. yet he will perish forever, thrown away like his own dung. Those who knew him will ask, `Where is he?'
• 8. He will fade like a dream and not be found. He will vanish like a vision in the night.
• 9. Neither his friends nor his family will ever see him again.
• 10. His children will beg from the poor, for he must give back his ill-gotten wealth.
• 11. He was just a young man, but his bones will lie in the dust.
• 12. "He enjoyed the taste of his wickedness, letting it melt under his tongue.
• 13. He savored it, holding it long in his mouth.
• 14. But suddenly, the food he has eaten turns sour within him, a poisonous venom in his stomach.
• 15. He will vomit the wealth he swallowed. God won't let him keep it down.
• 16. He will suck the poison of snakes. The viper will kill him.
• 17. He will never again enjoy abundant streams of olive oil or rivers of milk and honey.
• 18. His labors will not be rewarded. His wealth will bring him no joy.
• 19. For he oppressed the poor and left them destitute. He foreclosed on their homes.
• 20. He was always greedy but never satisfied. Of all the things he dreamed about, nothing remains.
• 21. Nothing is left after he finishes gorging himself; therefore, his prosperity will not endure.
• 22. "In the midst of plenty, he will run into trouble, and disasters will destroy him.
• 23. May God give him a bellyful of trouble. May God rain down his anger upon him.
• 24. He will try to escape, but God's arrow will pierce him.
• 25. The arrow is pulled from his body, and the arrowhead glistens with blood. The terrors of death are upon him.
• 26. "His treasures will be lost in deepest darkness. A wildfire will devour his goods, consuming all he has left.
• 27. The heavens will reveal his guilt, and the earth will give testimony against him.
• 28. A flood will sweep away his house. God's anger will descend on him in torrents.
• 29. This is the fate that awaits the wicked. It is the inheritance decreed by God."

Job 21

• 1. Then Job spoke again:
• 2. "Listen closely to what I am saying. You can console me by listening to me.
• 3. Bear with me, and let me speak. After I have spoken, you may mock me.
• 4. "My complaint is with God, not with people. No wonder I'm so impatient.
• 5. Look at me and be stunned. Put your hand over your mouth in shock.
• 6. When I think about what I am saying, I shudder. My body trembles.
• 7. "The truth is that the wicked live to a good old age. They grow old and wealthy.
• 8. They live to see their children grow to maturity, and they enjoy their grandchildren.
• 9. Their homes are safe from every fear, and God does not punish them.
• 10. Their bulls never fail to breed. Their cows bear calves without miscarriage.
• 11. Their children skip about like lambs in a flock of sheep.
• 12. They sing with tambourine and harp. They make merry to the sound of the flute.
• 13. They spend their days in prosperity; then they go down to the grave in peace.
• 14. All this, even though they say to God, `Go away. We want no part of you and your ways.
• 15. Who is the Almighty, and why should we obey him? What good will it do us if we pray?'
• 16. But their prosperity is not of their own doing, so I will have nothing to do with that kind of thinking.
• 17. "Yet the wicked get away with it time and time again. They rarely have trouble, and God skips them when he distributes sorrows in his anger.
• 18. Are they driven before the wind like straw? Are they carried away by the storm? Not at all!
• 19. " `Well,' you say, `at least God will punish their children!' But I say that God should punish the ones who sin, not their children! Let them feel their own penalty.
• 20. Let their own eyes see their destruction. Let them drink deeply of the anger of the Almighty.
• 21. For when they are dead, they will not care what happens to their family.
• 22. "But who can teach a lesson to God, the supreme Judge?
• 23. One person dies in prosperity and security,
• 24. the very picture of good health.
• 25. Another person dies in bitter poverty, never having tasted the good life.
• 26. Both alike are buried in the same dust, both eaten by the same worms.
• 27. "Look, I know your thoughts. I know the schemes you plot against me.
• 28. You will tell me of rich and wicked people who came to disaster because of their sins.
• 29. But I tell you to ask those who have been around, and they can tell you the truth.
• 30. Evil people are spared in times of calamity and are allowed to escape.
• 31. No one rebukes them openly. No one repays them for what they have done.
• 32. When they are carried to the grave, an honor guard keeps watch at their tomb.
• 33. A great funeral procession goes to the cemetery. Many pay their respects as the body is laid to rest and the earth gives sweet repose.
• 34. "How can you comfort me? All your explanations are wrong!"

New Living Translation: 159 of 324 days.