² “How long will you torment my soul
    and break me in pieces with words?
³ These ten times you have reproached me;
    you are not ashamed that you have wronged me.
⁴ And if indeed I have erred,
    my error remains with me.
⁵ If indeed you exalt yourselves against me
    and plead against me with my disgrace,
⁶ know now that God has bent me
    and has surrounded me with His net.

⁷ “Look, I cry out concerning wrong, but I am not heard;
    I cry aloud, but there is no justice.
⁸ He has fenced up my way that I cannot pass,
    and He has set darkness in my paths.
⁹ He has stripped me of my glory
    and taken the crown from my head.
¹⁰ He has destroyed me on every side, and I am gone;
    my hope He has uprooted like a tree.
¹¹ He has also kindled His wrath against me,
    and He counts me as one of His enemies.
¹² His troops come together
    and build up their road against me;
    they set up camp all around my tent.

¹³ “He has removed my brothers far from me,
    and my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
¹⁴ My relatives have failed,
    and my close friends have forgotten me.
¹⁵ Those who dwell in my house, and my maidservants,
    count me for a stranger;
    I am a foreigner in their sight.
¹⁶ I called my servant, but he gave me no answer;
    I begged him with my mouth.
¹⁷ My breath is offensive to my wife;
    I am loathsome to the children of my own body.
¹⁸ Yes, young children despise me;
    I arose, and they spoke against me.
¹⁹ All my close friends abhorred me,
    and they whom I love are turned against me.
²⁰ My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh,
    and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

²¹ “Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O you my friends,
    for the hand of God has struck me!
²² Why do you persecute me as God does,
    and are not satisfied with my flesh?

²³ “Oh, that my words were written!
    Oh, that they were inscribed in a book!
²⁴ That they were engraved with an iron pen
    and lead in the rock forever!
²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer lives,
    and He will stand at last on the earth;
²⁶ and after my skin is destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I will see God,
²⁷ whom I will see for myself,
    and my eyes will behold, and not another.
    How my heart yearns within me.

²⁸ “If you should say, ‘How shall we persecute him?’
    since the root of the matter is found in me,
²⁹ be afraid of the sword for yourselves;
    for wrath brings the punishments of the sword,
    that you may know there is a judgment.”