His children may [come to] honor, but he does not know [it]; or they may become lowly, but he does not realize it.

"I will show you, listen to me; and what I have seen, I will tell--

I myself also could talk as you, if {you were in my place}; I could join against you with words, and I could shake at you with my head.

I could encourage you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would ease the pain.

If I speak, my pain is not relieved; and [if] I cease, how much will leave me?

"Surely now he has worn me out; you have devastated all my company.

Thus you shriveled me up; it became a witness. And my leanness has risen up against me; it testifies to my face.

His wrath has torn, and he has been hostile toward me; he gnashed at me with his teeth. My foe sharpens his eyes against me.

They gaped at me with their mouth; they struck my cheeks with disgrace; they have massed themselves together against me.

God delivers me to an evil one, and he casts me into the hands of [the] wicked.

"I was at ease, then he broke me in two, and he seized [me] by my neck; then he shattered me and set me up as a target for him.

His archers surround me; he slashes open my kidneys, and he does not have compassion; he pours out my gall on the ground.

He breached me {breach upon breach}; he rushes at me like a warrior.

"I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and I have inserted {my pride} in the dust.

My face is red because of weeping, and deep shadows [are] on my eyelids,

{although} violence [is] not on my hands, and my prayer [is] pure.

"O earth, you should not cover my blood, and let there be no place for my cry for help.

So now look, my witness [is] in the heavens, and he [who] vouches for me [is] in the heights.

My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God,

"My spirit is pulled down; my days are extinguished; [the] graveyard [is] for me.

{Surely} mockery [is] with me, and my eye {rests} on their provocation.

Please lay down a pledge for me with yourself; who [is] he [who] will give security for my hand?

"And he has made me a proverb for [the] peoples, {and I am one before whom people spit}.

And my eye has grown dim from grief, and the limbs of my body [are] all like a shadow.

"My days are past; my plans are broken down-- [even] the desires of my heart.

If I hope [for] Sheol [as] my house, [if] I spread my couch in the darkness,

[if] I call to the pit, 'You [are] my father,' to the maggot, '[You are] my mother or my sister,'

where then [is] my hope? And {who will see my hope}?

"{How long} will you torment me and crush me with words?

These ten times you have disgraced me; you are not ashamed [that] you have attacked me.

And what is more, [if] I have truly erred, my error remains with me.

If indeed you must magnify yourselves against me, and you must let my disgrace argue against me,

know then that God has wronged me and has surrounded me [with] his net.

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

He has taken my glory from me, and he has removed the crown of my head.

He has broken me down all around, and I am gone. And he has uprooted my hope like a tree,

and he has kindled his wrath against me, and {he has counted me as one of his foes}.

His troops have come together and have thrown up their rampart against me and have encamped around my tent.

"He has removed my kinsfolk from me, and my acquaintances have only turned aside from me.

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

The sojourners in my house and my slave women count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes.

I call to my servant, but he does not answer; I must {personally} plead with him.

My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to {my own family}.

Little boys also despise me; [when] I rise, then they talk against me.

All {my intimate friends} abhor me, and these [whom] I have loved have turned against me.

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

"Pity me, pity me, you my friends, for God's hand has touched me.

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

"{O that} my words could be written down! {O that they could be inscribed in a scroll}!

But I myself know [that] my redeemer [is] alive, and [at the] last he will stand up upon {the earth}.

And after my skin has been thus destroyed, but from my flesh I will see God,

whom {I will see for myself}, and [whom] my eyes will see and not a stranger. {My heart faints within me}.

"If you say, 'How will we persecute him?' And 'The root of the trouble is found' in me,

be afraid for yourselves {because of the sword}, for wrath [brings] punishment by [the] sword, so that you may know that [there is] judgment."

"Therefore my disquieting thoughts bring me back {for the sake of} my inward excitement.

I hear discipline that insults me, and a spirit beyond my understanding answers me.

"Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation.

Bear [with] me, and I myself will speak; then after my speaking you can mock.

[As for] me, [is] my complaint for human beings? And if [so], why cannot I be impatient?

Turn to me and be appalled, and place [your] hand on [your] mouth.

And when I think of [it], I am horrified, and shuddering seizes my flesh.

Look, their prosperity [is] not in their hands; the schemes of [the] wicked are repugnant to me.

'God stores up his iniquity for his children'? [Then] let him repay [it] to him that he may know.

"Look, I know your thoughts and [the] schemes you devise against me.

So how will you comfort me [with] emptiness, when fraud is left [in] your answers?"

Yet he himself filled up their houses [with] good [things], but [the] schemes of [the] wicked are repugnant to me.

"Even today my complaint [is] bitter; my hand is heavy in addition to my groaning.

I would lay [my] case {before him}, and I would fill my mouth [with] arguments

I want to know [the] words [with which] he would answer me, and I want to understand what he would say to me.

Would he contend with me in [the] greatness of [his] strength? No, but he himself would give heed to me.

There an upright person could reason with him, and I would be acquitted forever by my judge.

But he knows {the way that I take}; he tests me--I shall come out like gold.

My foot has held on to his steps; I have kept his way, and I have not turned aside.

[From] the commandment of his lips, indeed I have not departed; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily food.

For he will carry out {what he appoints for me}, and many [things] like these [are] with him

Indeed, God has made my heart faint, and Shaddai has terrified me.

Indeed, I have not been silenced {because of darkness}, and because of me he conceals thick darkness.

And [the] eye of [the] adulterer waits for dusk, saying, {'No eye will see me,'} and he places a covering [on his] face.

"And if [it is] not [so], then who can prove me a liar and reduce my word to nothing?"

"{As God lives}, he has removed my justice, and Shaddai has made my inner self bitter.

For {as long as} my breath [is] in me, and the spirit of God [is] in my nose,

my lips surely will not speak falseness, and my tongue surely will not utter deceit.

Far be it from me that {I would say that you are right}; until I pass away, I will not put away from me my blamelessness.

I hold fast to my righteousness, and I will not let it go; my heart will not blame [any] of my days.

"Let my enemy be like [the] wicked and my opponent like [the] unrighteous,

The deep says, 'It [is] not in me,' and [the] sea says, 'It is not with me.'

"{O that I were} as [in] the months before, as [in] the days [when] God watched over me,

when his shining lamp [was] over my head-- by his light I walked through darkness--

as when I was in the days of my prime, when God's confiding [was] over my {house},

when Shaddai[was] still with me, my children [were] all around me,

when my paths were washed in sour milk, and [the] rock poured out streams of oil for me.

"At my going out [the] gate to [the] city, I secured my seat in the square.

Young men saw me and stepped aside, and [the] aged rose up [and] stood.

"When [the] ear heard and commended me, and [the] eye saw and testified in support of me

[The] blessing of [the] wretched came upon me, and I caused [the] widow's heart to sing for joy.

I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice [was] like a robe and a headband.

"And I thought, 'I will pass away in my nest, and like the phoenix I shall multiply [my] days.

My roots [were] open to water, and dew spent the night on my branches;

My glory [was] new with me, and {I was revitalized regularly}.'

"They listened to me and waited, and they kept silent for my counsel.