[1] Then Job answered: [2] How long will you torment me and crush me with words? [3] You have humiliated me ten times now, and you mistreat me without shame. [4] Even if it is true that I have sinned, my mistake concerns only me. [5] If you really want to appear superior to me and would use my disgrace as evidence against me, [6] then understand that it is God who has wronged me and caught me in his net. [7] I cry out, "Violence!" but get no response; I call for help, but there is no justice. [8] He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass through; 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 so that I am ruined. He uproots my hope like a tree. [11] His anger burns against me, and he regards me as one of his enemies. [12] His troops advance together; they construct a ramp against me and camp around my tent. [13] He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me. [14] My relatives stop coming by, and my close friends have forgotten me. [15] My house guests and female servants regard me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight. [16] I call for my servant, but he does not answer, even if I beg him with my own mouth. [17] My breath is offensive to my wife, and my own family finds me repulsive. [18] Even young boys scorn me. When I stand up, they mock me. [19] All of my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me. [20] My skin and my flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth. [21] Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for God's hand 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 written down, that they were recorded on a scroll [24] or were inscribed in stone forever by an iron stylus and lead! [25] But I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand on the dust. [26] Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God in my flesh. [27] I will see him myself; my eyes will look at him, and not as a stranger. My heart longs within me. [28] If you say, "How will we pursue him, since the root of the problem lies with him?" [29] then be afraid of the sword, because wrath brings punishment by the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.
