[1] Then Job answered,
[2] “How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?
[3] You have reproached me ten times. You aren’t ashamed that you attack me.
[4] If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.
[5] If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach;
[6] know 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.
[8] He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths.
[9] He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.
[10] He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. My hope he has plucked up like a tree.
[11] He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.
[12] His 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.
[14] My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.
[15] Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.
[16] I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth.
[17] My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.
[18] Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.
[19] All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.
[20] My 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.
[22] Why 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!
[24] That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!
[25] But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth.
[26] After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God,
[27] Whom I, even I, shall see on my side. My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger. “My heart is consumed within me.
[28] If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ because the root of the matter is found in me,
[29] be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.”