Job 17; Job 18; Job 19; Job 20

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Job 17

1 The end of my life is near. I can hardly breathe; there is nothing left for me but the grave.

2 I watch how bitterly everyone mocks me.

3 I am being honest, God. Accept my word. There is no one else to support what I say.

4 You have closed their minds to reason; don't let them triumph over me now.

5 In the old proverb someone betrays his friends for money, and his children suffer for it.

6 And now people use this proverb against me; they come and spit in my face.

7 My grief has almost made me blind; my arms and legs are as thin as shadows.

8 Those who claim to be honest are shocked, and they all condemn me as godless.

9 Those who claim to be respectable are more and more convinced they are right.

10 But if all of them came and stood before me, I would not find even one of them wise.

11 My days have passed; my plans have failed; my hope is gone.

12 But my friends say night is daylight; they say that light is near, but I know I remain in darkness.

13 My only hope is the world of the dead, where I will lie down to sleep in the dark.

14 I will call the grave my father, and the worms that eat me I will call my mother and my sisters.

15 Where is there any hope for me? Who sees any?

16 Hope will not go with me when I go down to the world of the dead.

Job 18

1 Job, can't people like you ever be quiet?

2 If you stopped to listen, we could talk to you.

3 What makes you think we are as stupid as cattle?

4 You are only hurting yourself with your anger. Will the earth be deserted because you are angry? Will God move mountains to satisfy you?

5 The light of the wicked will still be put out; its flame will never burn again.

6 The lamp in their tents will be darkened.

7 Their steps were firm, but now they stumble; they fall - victims of their own advice.

8 They walk into a net, and their feet are caught;

9 a trap catches their heels and holds them.

10 On the ground a snare is hidden; a trap has been set in their path.

11 All around them terror is waiting; it follows them at every step.

12 They used to be rich, but now they go hungry; disaster stands and waits at their side.

13 A deadly disease spreads over their bodies and causes their arms and legs to rot.

14 They are torn from the tents where they lived secure, and are dragged off to face King Death.

15 Now anyone may live in their tents - after sulfur is sprinkled to disinfect them!

16 Their roots and branches are withered and dry.

17 Their fame is ended at home and abroad; no one remembers them any more.

18 They will be driven out of the land of the living, driven from light into darkness.

19 They have no descendants, no survivors.

20 From east to west, all who hear of their fate shudder and tremble with fear.

21 That is the fate of evil people, the fate of those who care nothing for God.

Job 19

1 Why do you keep tormenting me

2 with words?

3 Time after time you insult me and show no shame for the way you abuse me.

4 Even if I have done wrong, how does that hurt you?

5 You think you are better than I am, and regard my troubles as proof of my guilt.

6 Can't you see it is God who has done this? He has set a trap to catch me.

7 I protest his violence, but no one is listening; no one hears my cry for justice.

8 God has blocked the way, and I can't get through; he has hidden my path in darkness.

9 He has taken away all my wealth and destroyed my reputation.

10 He batters me from every side. He uproots my hope and leaves me to wither and die.

11 God is angry and rages against me; he treats me like his worst enemy.

12 He sends his army to attack me; they dig trenches and lay siege to my tent.

13 God has made my own family forsake me; I am a stranger to those who knew me;

14 my relatives and friends are gone.

15 Those who were guests in my house have forgotten me; my servant women treat me like a stranger and a foreigner.

16 When I call a servant, he doesn't answer - even when I beg him to help me.

17 My wife can't stand the smell of my breath, and my own brothers won't come near me.

18 Children despise me and laugh when they see me.

19 My closest friends look at me with disgust; those I loved most have turned against me.

20 My skin hangs loose on my bones; I have barely escaped with my life.

21 You are my friends! Take pity on me! The hand of God has struck me down.

22 Why must you persecute me the way God does? Haven't you tormented me enough?

23 How I wish that someone would remember my words and record them in a book!

24 Or with a chisel carve my words in stone and write them so that they would last forever.

25 But I know there is someone in heaven who will come at last to my defense.

26 Even after my skin is eaten by disease, while still in this body I will see God.

27 I will see him with my own eyes, and he will not be a stranger. My courage failed because you said,

28 "How can we torment him?" You looked for some excuse to attack me.

29 But now, be afraid of the sword - the sword that brings God's wrath on sin, so that you will know there is one who judges.

Job 20

1 Job, you upset me.

2 Now I'm impatient to answer.

3 What you have said is an insult, but I know how to reply to you.

4 Surely you know that from ancient times, when we humans were first placed on earth,

5 no wicked people have been happy for long.

6 They may grow great, towering to the sky, so great that their heads reach the clouds,

7 but they will be blown away like dust. Those who used to know them will wonder where they have gone.

8 They will vanish like a dream, like a vision at night, and never be seen again.

9 The wicked will disappear from the place where they used to live;

10 and their children will make good what they stole from the poor.

11 Their bodies used to be young and vigorous, but soon they will turn to dust.

12 Evil tastes so good to them that they keep some in their mouths to enjoy its flavor.

14 But in their stomachs the food turns bitter, as bitter as any poison could be.

15 The wicked vomit up the wealth they stole; God takes it back, even out of their stomachs.

16 What the evil people swallow is like poison; it kills them like the bite of a deadly snake.

17 They will not live to see rivers of olive oil or streams that flow with milk and honey.

18 They will have to give up all they have worked for; they will have no chance to enjoy their wealth,

19 because they oppressed and neglected the poor and seized houses someone else had built.

20 Their greed is never satisfied.

21 When they eat, there is nothing left over, but now their prosperity comes to an end.

22 At the height of their success all the weight of misery will crush them.

23 Let them eat all they want! God will punish them in fury and anger.

24 When they try to escape from an iron sword, a bronze bow will shoot them down.

25 Arrows stick through their bodies; the shiny points drip with their blood, and terror grips their hearts.

26 Everything they have saved is destroyed; a fire not lit by human hands burns them and all their family.

27 Heaven reveals their sin, and the earth gives testimony against them.

28 All their wealth will be destroyed in the flood of God's anger.

29 This is the fate of wicked people, the fate that God assigns to them.