The Book of Job

And Job answered and said:

Until when will you torment my soul and break me in pieces with words?

[And] this, ten times you have shamed me; you are not ashamed that you have wronged me.

And [if] indeed I have erred, my error remains with me.

If truly you magnify yourself against me, and plead my misery against me,

know now that God has overthrown me and His net has closed on me.

Behold, I cry out, Violence! And I am not answered; I cry aloud, but [there is] no justice.

He has fenced up my path so that I cannot pass; and He has set darkness on my paths.

He has stripped me of my honor, and He has taken the crown from my head.

He has broken me on every side, and I go; and He has uprooted my hope like a tree.

And also His wrath glows against me, and to Himself He counts me as His foe.

His troops come together and they heap up their way against me; and they camp around my tent.

He has put my brothers from me; and my knowers are truly alienated from me.

My near ones have fallen away, and my friends have forgotten me.

The tenants in my house, even my slave-girls, count me as a foreigner; I am an alien in their eyes.

I called my servant, but he does not answer; I must beg him with my mouth.

My breath is strange to my wife, and I must beg to the sons of my [mother's] womb.

Even young children despise me; I rise, and they speak against me.

All the men of my counsel detest me; even this one I loved has turned against me.

Have pity on me! Have pity on me, you my friends. For the hand of God has touched me.

Why do you pursue me, as God [does], and are not satisfied with my flesh?

Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were engraved in a book!

[Oh that] they were cut with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever!

For I know my Redeemer [is] living, and He shall rise on the earth at the last;

and after my skin has been struck off from my flesh, yet this, I shall see God,

whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and no stranger; [though] my reins be exhausted in my bosom.

For you may say, Why do we persecute him? And the root of the matter is found in me.

Fear for yourselves because of the sword; for fury [brings] punishments of the sword, that you may know [there is] a judgment.