For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.

My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!

Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!

whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

If you say, 'How we will pursue him!' and, 'The root of the matter is found in him,'

And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God,

be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment."

Then Job answered and said:

"Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

"How long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words?

All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me.

He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.

"He has put my brothers far from me, and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me.

And even if it be true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.

His troops come on together; they have cast up their siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.

My relatives have failed me, my close friends have forgotten me.

He has stripped from me my glory and taken the crown from my head.

If indeed you magnify yourselves against me and make my disgrace an argument against me,

Behold, I cry out, 'Violence!' but I am not answered; I call for help, but there is no justice.

My breath is strange to my wife, and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.

know then that God has put me in the wrong and closed his net about me.

These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me?

He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths.

The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes.

Even young children despise me; when I rise they talk against me.

I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.

He has kindled his wrath against me and counts me as his adversary.