1 T hen Job answered,

2 “ How long will you make me suffer and crush me with words?

3 T en times you have put me to shame and are not ashamed to wrong me.

4 E ven if it is true that I have done wrong, it stays with me.

5 Y ou put yourselves up high against me, and try to prove my shame to me.

6 Y ou will know then that God has wronged me, and has set a trap around me.

7 “ See, I cry, ‘Someone is hurting me!’ but I get no answer. I call for help, but no one stands for what is right and fair.

8 H e has built a wall in my way so that I cannot pass. And He has put darkness on my paths.

9 H e has taken my honor from me, and taken the crown from my head.

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

11 H e has made His anger burn against me, and thinks of me as one who fights against Him.

12 H is armies come together and build a path against me. They camp around my tent.

13 “ He has taken my brothers far away from me and my friends have all left me.

14 M y brothers have left me, and my close friends have forgotten me.

15 T hose who live in my house and my women servants think of me as a stranger. I am like one from another country in their eyes.

16 I call to my servant, but he does not answer. I have to beg him.

17 M y breath smells bad to my wife, and I am hated by my own brothers.

18 E ven young children hate me. When I get up they speak against me.

19 A ll my friends hate me. Those I love have turned against me.

20 I am only skin and flesh. And I have gotten away only by the skin of my teeth.

21 H ave pity on me. Have pity on me, O you my friends. For the hand of God has hit me.

22 W hy do you make it hard for me as God does? Have I not suffered enough to please you?

23 “ If only my words were written! If only they were written down in a book!

24 I f only they were cut forever into the rock with an iron cutter and lead!

25 B ut as for me, I know that the One Who bought me and made me free from sin lives, and that He will stand upon the earth in the end.

26 E ven after my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.

27 I myself will see Him. With my own eyes I will see Him and not another. My heart becomes weak within me.

28 I f you say, ‘How will we make it hard for him?’ and, ‘The root of the problem is in him,’

29 y ou should be afraid of the sword for yourselves. For anger is punished by the sword, that you may know there is punishment for wrong-doing.”