⁶ “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
    and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
⁷ Surely now God has worn me out;
    he has^[a] made desolate all my company.
⁸ And he has^[b] shriveled me up,
    which is a witness against me;
and my leanness has risen up against me,
    it testifies to my face.
⁹ He has torn me in his wrath, and hated me;
    he has gnashed his teeth at me;
    my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
¹⁰ Men have gaped at me with their mouth,
    they have struck me insolently upon the cheek,
    they mass themselves together against me.
¹¹ God gives me up to the ungodly,
    and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
¹² I was at ease, and he broke me asunder;
    he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his target,
¹³     his archers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys, and does not spare;
    he pours out my gall on the ground.
¹⁴ He breaks me with breach upon breach;
    he runs upon me like a warrior.
¹⁵ I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin,
    and have laid my strength in the dust.
¹⁶ My face is red with weeping,
    and on my eyelids is deep darkness;
¹⁷ although there is no violence in my hands,
    and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸ “O earth, cover not my blood,
    and let my cry find no resting place.
¹⁹ Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,
    and he that vouches for me is on high.
²⁰ My friends scorn me;
    my eye pours out tears to God,
²¹ that he would maintain the right of a man with God,
    like^[c] that of a man with his neighbor.
²² For when a few years have come
    I shall go the way whence I shall not return.