¹ Job spoke next. He said:

² How much longer are you going to torment me and crush me by your speeches?

³ You have insulted me ten times already: have you no shame at maltreating me?

⁴ Even if I had gone astray, my error would still be my own affair.

⁵ But, whereas you take this superior attitude and claim that my disgrace is my own fault,

⁶ I tell you that God has wronged me and enveloped me in his net.

⁷ If I protest against such violence, I am not heard, if I appeal against it, judgement is never given.

⁸ He has built an impassable wall across my path and covered my way with darkness.

⁹ He has deprived me of my glory and taken the crown from my head.

¹⁰ He assails me from all directions to make me vanish; he uproots my hope as he might a tree.

¹¹ Inflamed with anger against me, he regards me as his foe.

¹² His troops have come in force, directing their line of advance towards me, they are now encamped round my tent.

¹³ He has alienated my brothers from me, my relatives take care to avoid me,

¹⁴ my intimate friends have gone away and the guests in my house have forgotten me.

¹⁵ My slave-girls regard me as an intruder, a stranger as far as they are concerned.

¹⁶ My servant does not answer when I call him, I am obliged to beg favours from him!

¹⁷ My breath is unbearable to my wife, my stench to my own brothers.

¹⁸ Even the children look down on me, whenever I stand up, they start jeering at me.

¹⁹ All my dearest friends recoil from me in horror: those I loved best have turned against me.

²⁰ My flesh is rotting under my skin, my bones are sticking out like teeth.

²¹ Pity me, pity me, my friends, since I have been struck by the hand of God.

²² Must you persecute me just as God does, and give my body no peace?

²³ Will no one let my words be recorded, inscribed on some monument

²⁴ with iron chisel and engraving tool, cut into the rock for ever?

²⁵ I know that I have a living Defender and that he will rise up last, on the dust of the earth.

²⁶ After my awakening, he will set me close to him, and from my flesh I shall look on God.

²⁷ He whom I shall see will take my part: my eyes will be gazing on no stranger. My heart sinks within me.

²⁸ When you say, 'How can we confound him? What pretext can we discover against him?'

²⁹ You yourselves had best beware the sword, since the wrath bursts into flame at wicked deeds and then you will learn that there is indeed a judgement!