Dual Panel1Then Job spoke again:
2"How long will you torture me? How long will you try to break me with your words?
3Ten times now you have meant to insult me. You should be ashamed of dealing with me so harshly.
4And even if I have sinned, that is my concern, not yours.
5You are trying to overcome me, using my humiliation as evidence of my sin,
6but it is God who has wronged me. I cannot defend myself, for I am like a city under siege.
7"I cry out for help, but no one hears me. I protest, but there is no justice.
8God has blocked my way and plunged my path into darkness.
9He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.
10He has demolished me on every side, and I am finished. He has destroyed my hope.
11His fury burns against me; he counts me as an enemy.
12His troops advance. They build up roads to attack me. They camp all around my tent.
13"My relatives stay far away, and my friends have turned against me.
14My neighbors and my close friends are all gone.
15The members of my household have forgotten me. The servant girls consider me a stranger. I am like a foreigner to them.
16I call my servant, but he doesn’t come; I even plead with him!
17My breath is repulsive to my wife. I am loathsome to my own family.
18Even young children despise me. When I stand to speak, they turn their backs on me.
19My close friends abhor me. Those I loved have turned against me.
20I have been reduced to skin and bones and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth.
21"Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for the hand of God has struck me.
22Why must you persecute me as God does? Why aren’t you satisfied with my anguish?
23"Oh, that my words could be written. Oh, that they could be inscribed on a monument,
24carved with an iron chisel and filled with lead, engraved forever in the rock.
25"But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he will stand upon the earth at last.
26And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God!
27I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!
28"How dare you go on persecuting me, saying, ‘It’s his own fault’?
29I warn you, you yourselves are in danger of punishment for your attitude. Then you will know that there is judgment."