I will show you; hear me; and what I have seen I will declare,

I also could speak as you do; if your soul were in my soul's place. I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you.

I might make you strong with my mouth, and the moving of my lips would spare you.

Though I speak, my pain is not held back, and though I forbear, in what way am I eased?

But now He has made me weary; You have made all my company desolate.

And You have plucked me, for it is a witness, and my failure rises up against me, and it answers to my face.

His anger has torn and hated me; He gnashes on me with His teeth; my enemy sharpens his eyes at me;

They have gaped on me with their mouth; and have scornfully beaten me on the cheek; they gather themselves against me.

God has delivered me to the perverse; and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.

I was at ease, but He has broken me in pieces; yea, He has also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces and set me up for His mark.

His archers hem me in; He splits my inward parts, and does not spare; He pours out my gall on the ground.

He breaks me with break on break; He runs on me like a giant.

I have sewed sackcloth on my skin and thrust my horn in the dust.

My face is reddened from weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

though no violence is in my hand, and my prayer is pure.

Oh earth, do not cover my blood, and let not my cry have a place.

Also now, behold, my Witness is in Heaven, and He who testifies of me is on high.

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

My spirit is broken, my days are ended, the graves are ready for me.

Are not mockeries with me? Yea, my eye rests on their insults.

Please lay down a pledge for me with Yourself; who is he who will strike hands with me?

He has made me also a byword of the peoples; and I am one in whose face they spit.

My eye also is dim from grief; and all my members are like a shadow.

My days are past, my purposes are broken off, the desires of my heart.

If I wait for the grave as my home, I have made my bed in the darkness;

I have said to corruption, You are my father; to the worm, My mother and my sister!

And where then is my hope? And as for my hope, who shall see it?

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

And this, ten times you have blamed me; you are not ashamed that you have wronged me.

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

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

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

He has fenced up my way so that I cannot pass, and He has set darkness in my paths.

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

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

He has also kindled His wrath against me, and to Himself He counts me as His enemy.

His troops come together and raise up their way against me, and camp around my tent.

He has put my brothers far from me, and my friends have truly turned away from me.

My people have fallen away, and my familiar friends have forgotten me.

Those who dwell in my house, and my slave-girls, count me as a stranger; I am a foreigner in their sight.

I called my servant, and he gave no answer; I must beg him with my mouth.

My breath is hated by my wife, and I must beg to the sons of my mother's womb.

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

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

My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped with the skin of my teeth.

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

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

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

For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall rise on the earth at the last;

and even after they corrupt my skin, yet this: in my flesh I shall see God,

whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not a stranger's; though my heart be exhausted in my bosom.

For you ought to say, Why do we persecute him, since the root of the matter is found in me?

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

Therefore my thoughts cause me to answer, even because of my haste in me.

I have heard the rebuke meant to shame me, and the spirit of my understanding causes me to answer.

Listen carefully to my speech, and let this be your comfort.

Rise with me and I shall speak; and after I have spoken, mock on.

As for me, is my complaint to man? And why should my spirit not be troubled?

Turn to me and be amazed, and lay your hand on your mouth.

And if I remember, I am afraid, and trembling takes hold on my flesh.

Behold, their good is not in their hand; the wisdom of the wicked is far from me.

Behold, I know your thoughts, and the plots which you wrongfully hatch against me.

How then do you comfort me in vain? Yea, in your answers remains transgression.

Can a man be useful to God, as he who is wise may be useful to himself?

Yet He filled their houses with substance; and the wisdom of the wicked is far from me.

Even today is my complaint bitter; my stroke is heavier than my groaning.

I would order my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments.

I would know the words which He would answer me, and understand what He would say to me.

Will He plead against me with His great power? No, surely He would give heed to me.

There the righteous might reason with Him; and I would be delivered forever from my Judge.

But He knows the way that I take; when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

My foot has held fast in His steps; I have kept His way, and have not fallen away;

nor have I gone back from the commandment of His lips; I treasured the words of His mouth more than my portion.

For He fulfilled my lot, and many things like these are with Him.

For God makes my heart soft, and the Almighty troubles me;

because I was not cut off before the darkness; yea, He covered the darkness from my face.

And the eye of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, No eye will see me; and he puts a covering on his face.

And if it is not so, who will make me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?

As God lives, He has taken away my judgment; and the Almighty has made my soul bitter.

As long as my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils,

my lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit.

Far be it from me that I should justify you; until I die I will not retract my integrity from me.

I hold fast by my righteousness, and I will not let it go; my heart shall not shame me any of my days.

Let my enemy be like the wicked, and he who rises up against me as the perverse.

he may prepare, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver.

The deep says, It is not in me; and the sea says, It is not in me.

Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God watched over me;

when His lamp shone on my head; I walked through darkness by His light;

as I was in the days of my harvest, when the secret of God was on my tent;

when the Almighty was yet with me, and my children were around me;

when I washed my steps with curds, and the rock poured out rivers of oil for me;

when I went out to the gate by the city; when I prepared my seat in the street!

The young men saw me and hid themselves; and the aged arose and stood up.

For the ear heard and blessed me. And the eye saw me and witnessed to me.

The blessing of the perishing came on me; and I caused the widow's heart to sing.

I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my judgment was like a robe and a diadem.

Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days like the sand.

My root was open to the waters, and the dew lay all night on my branch.

My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand.

They listened to me, and waited, and kept silent at my counsel.