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¹ "Behold, my eye has seen all, || My ear has heard, and it attends to it.² According to your knowledge I have known—also I. I am not more fallen than you.³ Yet I speak for the Mighty One, || And I delight to argue for God.⁴ And yet, you [are] forgers of falsehood, || Physicians of nothing—all of you,⁵ O that you would keep perfectly silent, || And it would be to you for wisdom.⁶ Please hear my argument, || And attend to the pleadings of my lips,⁷ Do you speak perverseness for God? And do you speak deceit for Him?⁸ Do you accept His face, if you strive for God?⁹ Is [it] good that He searches you, || If, as one mocks at a man, you mock at Him?¹⁰ He surely reproves you, if you accept faces in secret.¹¹ Does His excellence not terrify you? And His dread fall on you?¹² Your remembrances [are] allegories of ashes, || For high places of clay [are] your heights.

¹³ Keep silent from me, and I speak, || And pass over me what will.¹⁴ Why do I take my flesh in my teeth? And my soul put in my hand?¹⁵ Behold, He slays me—I do not wait! Only, I argue my ways to His face.¹⁶ Also—He [is] to me for salvation, || For the profane do not come before Him.¹⁷ Hear my word diligently, || And my declaration with your ears.¹⁸ Now behold, I have set the cause in order, || I have known that I am righteous.¹⁹ Who [is] he that strives with me? For now I keep silent and gasp.²⁰ Only two things, O God, do with me, || Then I am not hidden from Your face:²¹ Put Your hand far off from me, || And do not let Your terror terrify me.²² And You call, and I answer, || Or—I speak, and You answer me.

²³ How many iniquities and sins do I have? Let me know my transgression and my sin.²⁴ Why do You hide Your face? And reckon me for an enemy to You?²⁵ Do You terrify a leaf driven away? And do You pursue the dry stubble?²⁶ For You write bitter things against me, || And cause me to possess iniquities of my youth,²⁷ And you put my feet in the stocks, || And observe all my paths—You set a print on the roots of my feet,²⁸ And he, as a rotten thing, wears away, || A moth has consumed him as a garment."