 1 Job said, 2 How long will you torment my soul and break me in pieces with words? 3 Ten times you have blamed me. You are not ashamed that you have wronged me. 4 If indeed I have erred, my error remains with me. 5 If indeed you magnify yourself against me and plead against me my misery, 6 know that God has overthrown me and His net has closed on me. 7 Behold, I cry out, Violence. And I am not answered. I cry aloud, but there is no justice. 8 He has fenced up my way so that I cannot pass, and He has set darkness in my paths. 9 He has stripped me of my glory, and has taken the crown from my head. 10 He has broken me on every side, and I am gone, and He has uprooted my hope like a tree. 11 He has also kindled His wrath against me, and to Himself He counts me as His enemy. 12 His troops come together and raise up their way against me, and camp around my tent. 13 He has put my brothers far from me, and my friends have truly turned away from me. 14 My relatives+ have fallen away, and my close friends have forgotten me. 15 Those who live in my house and my slave girls count me as a stranger. I am a foreigner in their sight. 16 I called my servant, and he gave no answer; I must beg him with my mouth. 17 My breath is strange to my wife and I beg+ for the children of my own body. 18 Even young children despise me; I arise, and they speak against me. 19 All the men of my counsel detest me, even this one I loved has turned against me. 20 My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped with the skin of my teeth. 21 Have pity on me. Have pity on me, my friends. For the hand of God has touched me. 22 Why do you, like God, persecute me and are not satisfied with my flesh? 23 Oh that my words were now written. Oh that they were engraved in a book. 24 Oh that they were cut with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever. 25 For I know that my redeemer lives. He will rise on the earth at the last. 26 Even after they corrupt my skin, yet this. In my flesh I will see God. 27 I will see for myself and my eyes will behold, and not a stranger's. Though my heart be exhausted in my bosom. 28 For you ought to say, Why do we persecute him, since the root of the matter is found in me? 29 Fear for yourselves because of the sword. For wrath brings the punishments of the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.
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