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Job ¹ Then Job replied:

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

³ Ten times now you have reproached me; shamelessly you attack me.

⁴ If it is true that I have gone astray, my error remains my concern alone.

⁵ If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and use my humiliation against me,

⁶ then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me.

⁷ “Though I cry, ‘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 shrouded my paths 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 till I am gone; he uproots my hope like a tree.

¹¹ His anger burns against me; he counts me among his enemies.

¹² His troops advance in force; they build a siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.

¹³ “He has alienated my family from me; my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.

¹⁴ My relatives have gone away; my closest friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵ My guests and my female servants count me a foreigner; they look on me as on a stranger.

¹⁶ I summon my servant, but he does not answer, though I beg him with my own mouth.

¹⁷ My breath is offensive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family.

¹⁸ Even the little boys scorn me; when I appear, they ridicule me.

¹⁹ All my intimate friends detest me; those I love have turned against me.

²⁰ I am nothing but skin and bones; I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth. Or only by my gums

²¹ “Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.

²² Why do you pursue me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?

²³ “Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll,

²⁴ that they were inscribed with an iron tool on Or and lead, or engraved in rock forever!

²⁵ I know that my redeemer Or vindicator lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. Or on my grave

²⁶ And after my skin has been destroyed, yet Or And after I awake, / though this body has been destroyed, / then in Or destroyed, / apart from my flesh I will see God;

²⁷ I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

²⁸ “If you say, ‘How we will hound him, since the root of the trouble lies in him, Many Hebrew manuscripts, Septuagint and Vulgate; most Hebrew manuscripts me ’ ²⁹ you should fear the sword yourselves; for wrath will bring punishment by the sword, and then you will know that there is judgment. Or sword, / that you may come to know the Almighty ”