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Then Job spoke again:
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“How long will you torture me?
How long will you try to crush me with your words?
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You have already insulted me ten times.
You should be ashamed of treating me so badly.
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Even if I have sinned,
that is my concern, not yours.
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You think you’re better than I am,
using my humiliation as evidence of my sin.
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But it is God who has wronged me,
capturing me in his net. 1
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“I cry out, ‘Help!’ but no one answers me.
I protest, but there is no justice.
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God has blocked my way so I cannot move.
He has plunged my path into darkness.
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He has stripped me of my honor
and removed the crown from my head.
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He has demolished me on every side, and I am finished.
He has uprooted my hope like a fallen tree.
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His fury burns against me;
he counts me as an enemy.
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His troops advance.
They build up roads to attack me.
They camp all around my tent.
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“My relatives stay far away,
and my friends have turned against me.
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My family is gone,
and my close friends have forgotten me.
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My servants and maids consider me a stranger.
I am like a foreigner to them.
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When I call my servant, he doesn’t come;
I have to plead with him!
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My breath is repulsive to my wife.
I am rejected by my own family.
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Even young children despise me.
When I stand to speak, they turn their backs on me.
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My close friends detest me.
Those I loved have turned against me.
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I have been reduced to skin and bones
and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth.
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“Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy,
for the hand of God has struck me.
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Must you also persecute me, like God does?
Haven’t you chewed me up enough?
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“Oh, that my words could be recorded.
Oh, that they could be inscribed on a monument,
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carved with an iron chisel and filled with lead,
engraved forever in the rock.
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“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
and he will stand upon the earth at last.
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And after my body has decayed,
yet in my body I will see God! 2
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I will see him for myself.
Yes, I will see him with my own eyes.
I am overwhelmed at the thought!
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“How dare you go on persecuting me,
saying, ‘It’s his own fault’?
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You should fear punishment yourselves,
for your attitude deserves punishment.
Then you will know that there is indeed a judgment.”