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Job

¹ Then Job replied:

² "How long will you torment me
and crush me with words?

³ Ten times now you have reproached me;
shamelessly you attack me.

⁴ If it is true that I have gone astray,
my error remains my concern alone.

⁵ If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me
and use my humiliation against me,

⁶ then know that God has wronged me
and drawn his net around me.

⁷ "Though I cry, 'I've been wronged!' I get no response;
though I call for help, there is no justice.

⁸ He has blocked my way so I cannot pass;
he has shrouded my paths in darkness.

⁹ He has stripped me of my honor
and removed the crown from my head.

¹⁰ He tears me down on every side till I am gone;
he uproots my hope like a tree.

¹¹ His anger burns against me;
he counts me among his enemies.

¹² His troops advance in force;
they build a siege ramp against me
and encamp around my tent.

¹³ "He has alienated my brothers from me;
my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.

¹⁴ My kinsmen have gone away;
my friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵ My guests and my maidservants count me a stranger;
they look upon me as an alien.

¹⁶ I summon my servant, but he does not answer,
though I beg him with my own mouth.

¹⁷ My breath is offensive to my wife;
I am loathsome to my own brothers.

¹⁸ Even the little boys scorn me;
when I appear, they ridicule me.

¹⁹ All my intimate friends detest me;
those I love have turned against me.

²⁰ I am nothing but skin and bones;
I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth. ^(F33)

²¹ "Have pity on me, my friends, have pity,
for the hand of God has struck me.

²² Why do you pursue me as God does?
Will you never get enough of my flesh?

²³ "Oh, that my words were recorded,
that they were written on a scroll,

²⁴ that they were inscribed with an iron tool on ^(F34) lead,
or engraved in rock forever!

²⁵ I know that my Redeemer ^(F35) lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. ^(F36)

²⁶ And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet ^(F37) in ^(F38) my flesh I will see God;

²⁷ I myself will see him
with my own eyes-I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!

²⁸ "If you say, 'How we will hound him,
since the root of the trouble lies in him, ^(F39) '

²⁹ you should fear the sword yourselves;
for wrath will bring punishment by the sword,
and then you will know that there is judgment. "