Job Feels Insulted
1 Then Job answered and said,
2 “How long will you tormentandexasperate me
And crush me with words?
3 “These ten times you have insulted me;
You are not ashamed to wrong me [and harden your hearts against me].
4 “And if it were true that I have erred,
My error would remain with me [and I would be conscious of it].
5 “If indeed you [braggarts] vauntandmagnify yourselves over me
And prove my disgrace (humiliation) to me,
6 Know then that God has wronged meandoverthrown me
And has closed His net around me.
Everything Is Against Him
7 “Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not heard;
I shout for help, but there is no justice.
8 “He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass,
And He has set darkness upon my paths.
9 “He has stripped me of my honor
And removed the crown from my head.
10 “He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone;
He has uprooted my hope like a tree.
11 “He has also kindled His wrath [like a fire] against me
And He considersandcounts me as one of His adversaries.
12 “His troops come together
And build up their wayandsiege works against me
And camp around my tent.
13 “He has put my brothers far from me,
And my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
14 “My relatives have failed [me],
And my intimate friends have forgotten me.
15 “Those who live [temporarily] in my house and my maids consider me a stranger;
I am a foreigner in their sight.
16 “I call to my servant, but he does not answer;
I have to implore him with words.
17 “My breath is repulsive to my wife,
And I am loathsome to my own brothers.
18 “Even young children despise me;
When I get up, they speak against me.
19 “All the men of my council hate me;
Those I love have turned against me.
20 “My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh,
And I have escaped [death] by the skin of my teeth.
21 “Have pity on me! Have pity on me, O you my friends,
For the hand of God has touched me.
22 “Why do you persecute me as Goddoes?
Why are you not satisfied with my flesh (anguish)?
Job Says, “My Redeemer Lives”
23 “Oh, that the words I now speak were written!
Oh, that they were recorded in a scroll!
24 “That with an iron stylus and [molten] lead
They were engraved in the rock forever!
25 “For I know that my RedeemerandVindicator lives,
And at the last He will take His stand upon the earth.
26 “Even after my [mortal] skin is destroyed [by death],
Yet from my [immortal] flesh I will see God,
27 Whom I, even I, will see for myself,
And my eyes will see Him and not another!
My heart faints within me.
28 “If you say, ‘How shall we [continue to] persecute him?’
And ‘What pretext for a case against him can we find [since we claim the root of these afflictions is found in him]?’
29 “Thenbewareandbe afraid of the sword [of divine vengeance] for yourselves,
For wrathful are the punishments of that sword,
So that you may know there is judgment.”