¹³ “He has put my family far from me,
    and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
¹⁴ My relatives and my close friends have failed me;
¹⁵     the guests in my house have forgotten me;
my female servants count me as a stranger;
    I have become an alien in their eyes.^(A)
16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
    I must myself plead with him.
¹⁷ My breath is repulsive to my wife;
    I am loathsome to my own family.
¹⁸ Even young children despise me;
    when I rise, they talk against me.^(B)
19 All my intimate friends abhor me,
    and those whom I love have turned against me.^(C)
20 My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh,
    and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.^(D)
21 Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
    for the hand of God has touched me!^(E)
22 Why do you, like God, pursue me,
    never satisfied with my flesh?^(F)

²³ “O that my words were written down!
    O that they were inscribed in a book!^(G)
24 O that with an iron pen and with lead
    they were engraved on a rock forever!^(H)
25 For I know that my vindicator^[a] lives
    and that in the end he will stand upon the earth;^(I)
26 and after my skin has been destroyed,
    then in my flesh I shall see God,^(J)
27 whom I shall see on my side,
    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
    My heart faints within me!^(K)