[1] Then Job answered: [2] "How long will you torment me, and break me in
pieces with words? [3] These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are
you not ashamed to wrong me? [4] And even if it be true that I have erred,
my error remains with myself. [5] If indeed you magnify yourselves against
me, and make my humiliation an argument against me, [6] know then that God
has put me in the wrong, and closed his net about me. [7] Behold, I cry
out, `hold, I cry out, "Violence!' but I am not answered; I call aloud, but
there is no justice. [8] He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass,
and he has set darkness upon my paths. [9] He has stripped from me my
glory, and taken the crown from my head. [10] He breaks me down on every
side, and I am gone, and my hope has he pulled up like a tree. [11] He has
kindled his wrath against me, and counts me as his adversary. [12] His
troops come on together; they have cast up siegeworks against me, and
encamp round about my tent. [13] "He has put my brethren far from me, and
my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. [14] My kinsfolk and my
close friends have failed me; [15] the guests in my house have forgotten
me; my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become an alien in their
eyes. [16] I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must beseech
him with my mouth. [17] I am repulsive to my wife, loathsome to the sons of
my own mother. [18] Even young children despise me; when I rise they talk
against me. [19] All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved
have turned against me. [20] My bones cleave to my skin and to my flesh,
and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. [21] Have pity on me, have pity
on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! [22] Why do
you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh? [23] "Oh
that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! [24] Oh
that with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever! [25]
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the
earth; [26] and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I
shall see God, [27] whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold,
and not another. My heart faints within me! [28] If you say, `e him!' and,
`s found in him'; [29] be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the
punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment."
