1Then Job answered and said:2“How long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words?3These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me? (Ge 31:7)4And even if it be true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.5If indeed you magnify yourselves against me and make my disgrace an argument against me, (Ps 35:26; Ps 38:16; Ps 55:12)6know then that God has put me in the wrong and closed his net about me. (Job 8:3; Job 34:12; La 3:36)7Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered; I call for help, but there is no justice. (Job 24:12; La 3:8; Hab 1:2)8He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths. (Job 3:23; Job 13:27; La 3:7; La 3:9; Ho 2:6)9He has stripped from me my glory and taken the crown from my head. (Job 29:14; Ps 89:39; Ps 89:44; La 5:16)10He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, and my hope has he pulled up like a tree. (Job 10:21; Job 14:20; Job 27:21)11He has kindled his wrath against me and counts me as his adversary. (Job 13:24)12His troops come on together; they have cast up their siege ramp[1] against me and encamp around my tent. (Job 10:17; Job 25:2; Job 30:12)13“He has put my brothers far from me, and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me. (Job 6:15; Ps 31:11; Ps 69:8; Ps 88:8; Ps 88:18)14My relatives have failed me, my close friends have forgotten me. (Ps 38:11; Ps 55:13)15The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes. (Ge 17:27; Mt 10:36)16I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.17My breath is strange to my wife, and I am a stench to the children of my own mother. (Job 2:9; Job 3:10)18Even young children despise me; when I rise they talk against me. (2Ki 2:23)19All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me. (Ps 41:9; Ps 55:13)20My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. (Ps 102:5; La 4:8)21Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! (Job 1:11; Isa 53:4)22Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh? (Ps 69:26)23“Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! (Isa 30:8)24Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! (Jer 17:1)25For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.[2] (Ge 48:16; Job 30:23; Job 41:33; Ps 19:14; Ps 103:4; Isa 43:14; Isa 44:6; Isa 44:24; Isa 49:7; 1Th 1:10)26And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in[3] my flesh I shall see God, (Ps 17:15; 1Co 13:12; 1Jo 3:2)27whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me! (Ps 73:26; Pr 27:2)28If you say, ‘How we will pursue him!’ and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him,’[4] (Job 19:22)29be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.” (Ps 58:11; Ec 12:14)