1Then Job answered and said,
2How long will you vex my soul, And break me in pieces with words?
3These ten times you have reproached me: You are not ashamed that you deal harshly with me.
4And if it is indeed true that I have erred, My error remains with myself.
5If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, And plead against me my reproach;
6Know now that God has subverted me in my cause, And has surrounded me with his net.
7Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry for help, but there is no justice.
8He has walled up my way that I cannot pass, And has set darkness in my paths.
9He has stripped me of my glory, And taken the crown from my head.
10He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone; And my hope he has plucked up like a tree.
11He has also kindled his wrath against me, And he counts me to him as one of his adversaries.
12His troops come on together, And cast up their way against me, And encamp all around my tent.
13He has put my brothers far from me, And my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
14My relatives have failed, And my familiar friends have forgotten me.
15Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight.
16I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer, Though I entreat him with my mouth.
17My breath is strange to my wife, And my supplication to the children of my own mother.
18Even young children despise me; If I arise, they speak against me.
19All my familiar friends abhor me, And those whom I loved have turned against me.
20My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, And I have escaped with the skin of my teeth.
21Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends; For the hand of God has touched me.
22Why do you persecute me as God, And are not satisfied with my flesh?
23Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
24That with an iron pen and lead They were engraved in the rock forever!
25But as for me I know that my Redeemer lives, And at last he will stand up on the earth:
26And after my skin, even this body, is destroyed, Then without my flesh I shall see God;
27Whom I, even I, shall see, on my side, And my eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger. My heart is consumed within me.
28If you say, How we will persecute him! And that the root of the matter is found in me;
29Be afraid of the sword: For wrath brings the punishments of the sword, That you may know there is a judgment.