✧Lo, mine eye hath seen all [this], mine ear hath heard and understood it. ✧2What ye know, [the same] do I know also: I [am] not inferior unto you. ✧3Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God. ✧4But ye [are] forgers of lies, ye [are] all physicians of no value. ✧5O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom. ✧6Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips. ✧7Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him? ✧8Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God? ✧9Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do ye [so] mock him? ✧10He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons. ✧11Shall not his excellency make you afraid? and his dread fall upon you? ✧12Your remembrances [are] like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay. ✧13Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what [will]. ✧14Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand? ✧15Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him. ✧16He also [shall be] my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him. ✧17Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears. ✧18Behold now, I have ordered [my] cause; I know that I shall be justified. ✧19Who [is] he [that] will plead with me? for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost. ✧20Only do not two [things] unto me: then will I not hide myself from thee. ✧21Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid. ✧22Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me. ✧23How many [are] mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin. ✧24Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy? ✧25Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble? ✧26For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth. ✧27Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet. ✧28And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.