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¹ Then Job answered and said,² How long will you vex my soul, And break me in pieces with words?³ These ten times you have reproached me: You are not ashamed that you deal harshly with me.⁴ And if indeed I have erred, My error remains with myself.⁵ If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, And plead against me my reproach;⁶ Know now that God has subverted me [in my cause], And has compassed me with his net.⁷ Look, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry for help, but there is no justice.

⁸ He has walled up my way that I can't pass, And has set darkness in my paths.⁹ He has stripped me of my glory, And taken the crown from my head.¹⁰ He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone; And my hope he has plucked up like a tree.¹¹ He has also kindled his wrath against me, And he counts me to him as [one of] his adversaries.¹² His troops come on together, And cast up their way against me, And encamp round about my tent.¹³ He has put my brothers far from me, And my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.¹⁴ My kinsfolk have failed, And my familiar friends have forgotten me.¹⁵ Those that dwell in my house, and my female slaves, count me for a stranger; I am an alien in their sight.¹⁶ I call to my slave, and he gives me no answer, [Though] I plead to him with my mouth.¹⁷ My breath is strange to my wife, And my supplication to the sons of my own mother.¹⁸ Even young children despise me; If I arise, they speak against me.¹⁹ All my familiar friends are disgusted by me, And they whom I loved are turned against me.²⁰ My bone cleaves to my skin and to my flesh, And I have escaped with 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 persecute me as God, And are not satisfied with my flesh?

²³ Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!²⁴ That with an iron pen and lead They were engraved in the rock forever!²⁵ But as for me I know that my Redeemer lives, And at last he will stand up on the earth:²⁶ And after my skin, [even] this [body], is destroyed, Then without my flesh shall I see God;²⁷ Whom I, even I, shall see, on my side, And my eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger. My heart is consumed inside me.²⁸ If you say, How we will persecute him! And that the root of the matter is found in me;²⁹ Be afraid of the sword: For wrath [brings] the punishments of the sword, That you may know there is a judgment.