1 Job answered, and said,
2 "How long will ye vex my mind, and trouble me with words?
3 Lo, ten times have ye reproved me: are ye not ashamed, for to laugh me to scorn?
4 If I go wrong, I go wrong to myself.
5 But if ye will enhance yourselves against me, and accuse me to be a wicked person because of the shame that is come upon me;
6 know this then: that it is God which hath handled me so violently, and hath compassed me about with his net.
7 Behold: though I cry, yet violence is done unto me. I cannot be heard! Though I complain, there is none to give sentence with me.
8 "He hath hedged up my way, that I cannot pass; he hath set darkness in my gate.
9 He hath spoiled me of mine honour, and taken the crown away from my head.
10 He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am undone: My hope hath he taken away from me, as it were a tree plucked up by the root.
11 His wrath is kindled against me; he taketh me, as though I were his enemy.
12 His men of war came together, which made their way over me, and besieged my dwelling round about.
13 He hath put my brethren far away from me, and such as were of mine acquaintance, are become strangers unto me.
14 Mine own kinfolk have forsaken me, and my friends have put me out of remembrance.
15 The servants and maids of mine own house take me for a stranger, and I am become as an alien in their sight.
16 When I call upon my servant, he giveth me no answer: no though I pray him with my mouth.
17 Mine own wife may not abide my breath, I was fain to speak fair for the children of mine own body.
18 Yea the children despised me, and when I was gone from them, they spake evil upon me.
19 All such as were my most familiars, abhor me: And they whom I loved best, are turned against me.
20 My bone hangeth to my skin, and my flesh is away; there is left me only the skin about my teeth.
21 Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends! For the hand of God hath touched me.
22 Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied of my flesh?
23 O that my words were written, O that they were put in a book:
24 would God they were graven with an iron pen in lead or in stone.
25 "For I am sure that my redeemer liveth, and that I shall rise out of the earth in the latter day:
26 that I shall be clothed again with this skin, and see God in my flesh.
27 Yea, I myself shall behold him - not with other, but with these same eyes, though my reins are consumed within me.