[1] Then Job answered:
[2] “How long will you torment me and crush me with your words?
[3] Ten times now you have reproached me; you shamelessly mistreat me.
[4] Even if I have truly gone astray, my error concerns me alone.
[5] If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and use my disgrace against me,
[6] then understand that it is God who has wronged me and drawn His net around me.
[7] Though I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice.
[8] He has blocked my way so I cannot pass; He has veiled my paths with darkness.
[9] He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.
[10] He tears me down on every side until I am gone; He uproots my hope like a tree.
[11] His anger burns against me, and He counts me among His enemies.
[12] His troops advance together; they construct a ramp against me and encamp around my tent.
[13] He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me.
[14] My kinsmen have failed me, and my friends have forgotten me.
[15] My guests and maidservants count me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight.
[16] I call for my servant, but he does not answer, though I implore him with my own mouth.
[17] My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family.
[18] Even little boys scorn me; when I appear, they deride me.
[19] All my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me.
[20] My skin and flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
[21] Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.
[22] Why do you persecute me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?
[23] I wish that my words were recorded and inscribed in a book,
[24] by an iron stylus on lead, or chiseled in stone forever.
[25] But I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth.
[26] Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.
[27] I will see Him for myself; my eyes will behold Him, and not as a stranger. How my heart yearns within me!
[28] If you say, ‘Let us persecute him, since the root of the matter lies with him,’
[29] then you should fear the sword yourselves, because wrath brings punishment by the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.”