Job

¹ Then Job answered:

² “How long will you torment me

and crush me with your words?

³ Ten times now you have reproached me;

you shamelessly mistreat me.

⁴ Even if I have truly gone astray,

my error concerns me alone.

⁵ If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me

and use my disgrace against me,

⁶ then understand that it is God who has wronged me

and drawn His net around me.

⁷ Though I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I get no response;

though I call for help, there is no justice.

⁸ He has blocked my way so I cannot pass;

He has veiled my paths with 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 counts me among His enemies.

¹² His troops advance together;

they construct a ramp against me

and encamp around my tent.

¹³ He has removed my brothers from me;

my acquaintances have abandoned me.

¹⁴ My kinsmen have failed me,

and my friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵ My guests and maidservants count me as a stranger;

I am a foreigner in their sight.

¹⁶ I call for my servant, but he does not answer,

though I implore him with my own mouth.

¹⁷ My breath is repulsive to my wife,

and I am loathsome to my own family.

¹⁸ Even little boys scorn me;

when I appear, they deride me.

¹⁹ All my best friends despise me,

and those I love have turned against me.

²⁰ My skin and flesh cling to my bones;

I have escaped 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 persecute me as God does?

Will you never get enough of my flesh?

²³ I wish that my words were recorded

and inscribed in a book,

²⁴ by an iron stylus on lead,

or chiseled in stone forever.

²⁵ But I know that my Redeemer ^[a] lives,

and in the end He will stand upon the earth. ^[b]

²⁶ Even after my skin has been destroyed,

yet in my flesh ^[c] I will see God.

²⁷ I will see Him for myself;

my eyes will behold Him, and not as a stranger.

How my heart yearns ^[d] within me!

²⁸ If you say, ‘Let us persecute him,

since the root of the matter lies with him, ^[e] ’

²⁹ then you should fear the sword yourselves,

because wrath brings punishment by the sword,

so that you may know there is a judgment.”