² “How long will you torment me,
    and crush me with words?
³ You have reproached me ten times.
    You aren’t ashamed that you attack me.
⁴ If it is true that I have erred,
    my error remains with myself.
⁵ If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me,
    and plead against me my reproach,
⁶ know now that God has subverted me,
    and has surrounded me with his net.

⁷ “Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard.
    I cry for help, but there is no justice.
⁸ He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass,
    and has set darkness in my paths.
⁹ He has stripped me of my glory,
    and taken the crown from my head.
¹⁰ He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone.
    He has plucked my hope up like a tree.
¹¹ He has also kindled his wrath against me.
    He counts me among his adversaries.
¹² His troops come on together,
    build a siege ramp against me,
    and encamp around my tent.

¹³ “He has put my brothers far from me.
    My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
¹⁴ My relatives have gone away.
    My familiar friends have forgotten me.
¹⁵ Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger.
    I am an alien in their sight.
¹⁶ I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer.
    I beg him with my mouth.
¹⁷ My breath is offensive to my wife.
    I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.
¹⁸ Even young children despise me.
    If I arise, they speak against me.
¹⁹ All my familiar friends abhor me.
    They whom I loved have turned against me.
²⁰ My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh.
    I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

²¹ “Have pity on me. Have pity on me, you my friends;
    for the hand of God has touched me.
²² Why do you persecute me as God,
    and are not satisfied with my flesh?

²³ “Oh that my words were now written!
    Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
²⁴ That with an iron pen and lead
    they were engraved in the rock forever!
²⁵ But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives.
    In the end, he will stand upon the earth.
²⁶ After my skin is destroyed,
    then I will see God in my flesh,
²⁷ whom I, even I, will see on my side.
    My eyes will see, and not as a stranger.

“My heart is consumed within me.
²⁸ If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’
    because the root of the matter is found in me,
²⁹ be afraid of the sword,
    for wrath brings the punishments of the sword,
    that you may know there is a judgment.”