✧Then Job answered and said, ✧2How long will ye vex my soul, And break me in pieces with words? ✧3These ten times have ye reproached me: Ye are not ashamed that ye deal hardly with me. ✧4And be it indeed that I have erred, Mine error remaineth with myself. ✧5If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, And plead against me my reproach; ✧6Know now that God hath subverted me [in my cause], And hath compassed me with his net. ✧7Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry for help, but there is no justice. ✧8He hath walled up my way that I cannot pass, And hath set darkness in my paths. ✧9He hath stripped me of my glory, And taken the crown from my head. ✧10He hath broken me down on every side, and I am gone; And my hope hath he plucked up like a tree. ✧11He hath also kindled his wrath against me, And he counteth me unto him as [one of] his adversaries. ✧12His troops come on together, And cast up their way against me, And encamp round about my tent. ✧13He hath put my brethren far from me, And mine acquaintance are wholly estranged from me. ✧14My kinsfolk have failed, And my familiar friends have forgotten me. ✧15They that dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight. ✧16I call unto my servant, and he giveth me no answer, [Though] I entreat him with my mouth. ✧17My breath is strange to my wife, And my supplication to the children of mine own mother. ✧18Even young children despise me; If I arise, they speak against me. ✧19All my familiar friends abhor me, And they whom I loved are turned against me. ✧20My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, And I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. ✧21Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; For the hand of God hath touched me. ✧22Why do ye persecute me as God, And are not satisfied with my flesh? ✧23Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! ✧24That with an iron pen and lead They were graven in the rock for ever! ✧25But as for me I know that my Redeemer liveth, And at last he will stand up upon the earth: ✧26And after my skin, [even] this [body], is destroyed, Then without my flesh shall I see God; ✧27Whom I, even I, shall see, on my side, And mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger. My heart is consumed within me. ✧28If ye say, How we will persecute him! And that the root of the matter is found in me; ✧29Be ye afraid of the sword: For wrath [bringeth] the punishments of the sword, That ye may know there is a judgment.