1Then Job replied [to his friends],

2"How long will you torment me and depress me with words?

3You have insulted me ten times now. You're not even ashamed of mistreating me.

4Even if it were true that I've made a mistake without realizing it, my mistake would affect only me.

5If you are trying to make yourselves look better than me by using my disgrace as an argument against me,

6then I want you to know that God has wronged me and surrounded me with his net.

7Indeed, I cry, 'Help! I'm being attacked!' but I get no response. I call for help, but there is no justice.

8"God has blocked my path so that I can't go on. He has made my paths dark.

9He has stripped me of my honor. He has taken the crown off my head.

10He beats me down on every side until I'm gone. He uproots my hope like a tree.

11He is very angry at me. He considers me to be his enemy.

12His troops assemble against me. They build a ramp to attack me and camp around my tent.

13"My brothers stay far away from me. My friends are complete strangers to me.

14My relatives and my closest friends have stopped coming. My house guests have forgotten me.

15My female slaves consider me to be a stranger. I am like a foreigner to them.

16I call my slave, but he doesn't answer, though I beg him.

17My breath offends my wife. I stink to my own children.

18Even young children despise me. If I stand up, they make fun of me.

19All my closest friends are disgusted with me. Those I love have turned against me.

20I am skin and bones, and I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.

21"Have pity on me, my friends! Have pity on me because God's hand has struck me down.

22Why do you pursue me as God does? Why are you never satisfied with my flesh?

23"I wish now my words were written. I wish they were inscribed on a scroll.

24I wish they were forever engraved on a rock with an iron stylus and lead.

25But I know that my defender lives, and afterwards, he will rise on the earth.

26Even after my skin has been stripped off my body, I will see God in my own flesh.

27I will see him with my own eyes, not with someone else's. My heart fails inside me!

28"You say, 'We will persecute him! The root of the problem is found in him.'

29Fear death, because [your anger] is punishable by death. Then you will know there is a judge."