2 “How long will you torment my soulAnd crush me with words?
3 “These ten times you have dishonored me;You are not ashamedthatyou wrong me.
4 “ 19:4Or Indeed, I have truly erred Even if I have truly erred,My error lodges with me.
5 “If truly you magnify yourselves against meAnd argue my disgrace to me,
6 Know then that God has wronged meAnd has closed His net around me.
7 ¶“Behold, I cry, ‘Violence!’ but I get no answer;I shout for help, but there is no justice.
8 “He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass,And He has put darkness on my paths.
9 “He has stripped my honor from meAnd removed the crown from my head.
10 “He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone;And He has uprooted my hope like a tree.
11 “He has also kindled His anger against meAnd counted me as His adversary.
12 “His troops come together,And build up their 19:12 Siegework way against meAnd camp around my tent.
13 ¶“He has removed my brothers far from me,And my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
14 “My relatives have failed,And my familiar friends have forgotten me.
15 “Those who sojourn in my house and my maidservants count 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 my mouth.
17 “My breath is 19:17Lit strange offensive to my wife,And I am loathsome to my own brothers.
18 “Even young children reject me;I rise up, and they speak against me.
19 “All the men of my counsel abhor me,And those I love have turned against me.
20 “My bone clings to my skin and my flesh,And I have escapedonlyby the skin of my teeth.
21 “Pity me, pity me, O you my friends,For the hand of God has smitten me.
22 “Why do you persecute me as Goddoes,And are not satisfied with my flesh?
23 ¶“Oh that my words were written!Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
24 “That with an iron stylus and leadThey were engraved in the rock forever!
25 “As for me, I know that my 19:25Or Vindicator, Defender; lit kinsman Redeemer lives,And 19:25Lit after, cf. Job 19:26 at the last He will rise up over the dustof this world.
26 “Even after my skin 19:26Lit which they have cut off is destroyed,Yet from my flesh I shall behold God,
27 Whom I 19:27Or on my side myself shall behold,And whom my eyes will see and not another.My 19:27Lit kidneys heart faints 19:27Lit in my loins within me!
28 “If you say, ‘How shall we persecute him?’‘And the root of the matter is found in 19:28Lit me him?’
29 “Thenbe afraid of the sword for yourselves,For wrathbringsthe punishment of the sword,So that you may know there is judgment.”