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Then Job replied:
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“How long will you torment me and crush me with words?
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Ten times now you have reproached me; shamelessly you attack me.
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If it is true that I have gone astray, my error remains my concern alone.
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If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and use my humiliation against me,
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then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me.
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“Though I cry, ‘Violence!’ I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice.
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He has blocked my way so I cannot pass; he has shrouded my paths in darkness.
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He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.
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He tears me down on every side till I am gone; he uproots my hope like a tree.
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His anger burns against me; he counts me among his enemies.
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His troops advance in force; they build a siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.
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“He has alienated my family from me; my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
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My relatives have gone away; my closest friends have forgotten me.
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My guests and my female servants count me a foreigner; they look on me as on a stranger.
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I summon my servant, but he does not answer, though I beg him with my own mouth.
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My breath is offensive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family.
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Even the little boys scorn me; when I appear, they ridicule me.
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All my intimate friends detest me; those I love have turned against me.
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I am nothing but skin and bones; I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.
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“Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.
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Why do you pursue me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?
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“Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll,
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that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engrave in rock forever!
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I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
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And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;
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I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!
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“If you say, ‘How we will hound him, since the root of the trouble lies in him,’
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you should fear the sword yourselves; for wrath will bring punishment by the sword, and then you will know that there is judgment.”
