1 Job responded, saying:
2 “How long will you torment my soul and crush me with words?
3 Ten times now you have reproached me; you attack me shamelessly.
4 But even if it is true that I have erred, my error remains with me.
5 If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and prove my humiliation against me,
6 then know that God has wronged me and encircled me with His net.
7 “Though I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I get no response. I cry for help, but there is no justice.
8 He has blocked my way so I cannot pass, and has shrouded my path in darkness.
9 He has stripped me of my honor, and removed the crown from my head.
10 He tears me down on every side until I am gone; He uproots my hope like a tree.
11 His anger burns against me, and He considers me among His enemies.
12 His troops advance together; they build a siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.
13 “He removed my brothers far from me; my acquaintances are only strangers to me.
14 My relatives have gone away and my close friends have forgotten me.
15 My houseguests and my maidservants consider me a stranger. I have become a foreigner in their eyes.
16 I call my servant but he does not reply though I beg him with my own mouth.
17 My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my children.
18 Even young children despise me; when I stand, they speak against me.
19 All my close friends despise me; those I love have turned against me.
20 My bones cling to my skin and my flesh; I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.
21 “Have pity on me my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.
22 Why do you pursue me—like God? Are you not satisfied with my flesh?
23 Oh that my words were written, that they were recorded in a scroll
24 that with an iron pen and lead, they were engraved in stone forever!
25 “Yet I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end, He will stand on earth.
26 Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see Him with my own eyes, I and not a stranger. My heart grows weak within me.
28 “If you say, ‘How we will pursue him, since the root of the matter is found in him;’
29 then you should fear the sword for yourselves; for wrath brings the punishments of the sword— so that you may know judgment!”