1 T hen Job answered:

2 H ow long will you vex and torment me and break me in pieces with words?

3 T hese ten times you have reproached me; you are not ashamed that you make yourselves strange.

4 A nd if it were true that I have erred, my error would remain with me.

5 I f indeed you magnify yourselves against me and plead against me my reproach and humiliation,

6 K now that God has overthrown and put me in the wrong and has closed His net about me.

7 B ehold, I cry out, Violence! but I am not heard; I cry aloud for help, but there is no justice.

8 H e has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and He has set darkness upon my paths.

9 H e has stripped me of my glory and taken the crown from my head.

10 H e has broken me down on every side, and I am gone; my hope has He pulled up like a tree.

11 H e has also kindled His wrath against me, and He counts me as one of His adversaries.

12 H is troops come together and cast up their way and siege works against me and encamp round about my tent.

13 H e has put my brethren far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

14 M y kinsfolk have failed me, and my familiar friends have forgotten me.

15 T hose who live temporarily in my house and my maids count me as a stranger; I am an alien in their sight.

16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer, though I beseech him with words.

17 I am repulsive to my wife and loathsome to the children of my own mother.

18 E ven young children despise me; when I get up, they speak against me.

19 A ll the men of my council and my familiar friends abhor me; those whom I loved are turned against me.

20 M y bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped with the skin or gums of my teeth.

21 H ave pity on me! Have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!

22 W hy do you, as if you were God, pursue and persecute me? why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

23 O h, that the words I now speak were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book!

24 T hat with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock forever!

25 F or I know that my Redeemer and Vindicator lives, and at last He will stand upon the earth.

26 A nd after my skin, even this body, has been destroyed, then from my flesh or without it I shall see God,

27 W hom I, even I, shall see for myself and on my side! And my eyes shall behold Him, and not as a stranger! My heart pines away and is consumed within me.

28 I f you say, How we will pursue him! that the root of all these is found in me,

29 T hen beware and be afraid of the sword, for wrathful are the punishments of that sword, that you may know there is a judgment.