Then Job answered and said,

How long will you grieve my soul And crush me with your words?

These ten times you have reproached me; You are not ashamed to deal wrongly with me.

And be it that I have erred, My error remains with me.

If you indeed magnify yourselves against me And use my reproach in argument against me,

Know then that God has subverted my cause And compassed me about with His net.

Indeed, I cry out, Violence! and I am not answered; I call for help, and there is no justice.

He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass; And He has put darkness upon my paths.

He has stripped my glory from me And taken away the crown on my head.

He has broken me all around, and I am gone; And my hope is plucked up like a tree.

He has also kindled His anger against me, And in Himself He considers me as His adversary.

His troops come together And cast up their highway against me And encamp all around my tent.

He has removed my brothers far from me, And those who know me are wholly estranged from me.

My relatives have failed me, And my acquaintances have forgotten me.

Those who sojourn in my house and my maids consider me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their eyes.

To my servant I call out, but he does not answer; I entreat him with my mouth.

My breath is strange to my wife; And my supplications, to the children of my mother's womb.

Even little children despise me: I arise and they speak against me.

All the men whom I take counsel with abhor me, And those whom I love have turned against me.

My bones cleave to my skin and to my flesh, And I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

Pity me, pity me, O my friends; For the hand of God has touched me.

Why do you persecute me as God does And are not satisfied with eating my flesh?

Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

That with an iron pen and with lead They were engraved in rock forever!

But I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will stand upon the earth;

And after this body of mine is destroyed, Outside my flesh I will look on God,

Whom I, even I, will look on for myself, And my eyes will see; I, and no other. My inward parts that long for God are consumed within me.

If you say, How will we persecute him? For the root of the matter is found in him;

Be fearful of the sword, For wrath brings the punishment of the sword, That you may know that there is a judgment.