¹ And Job answereth and saith: --

^{2 Ref} Till when do ye afflict my soul, And bruise me with words?

^{3 Ref} These ten times ye put me to shame, ye blush not. Ye make yourselves strange to me --

^{4 Ref} And also -- truly, I have erred, With me doth my error remain.

^{5 Ref} If, truly, over me ye magnify yourselves, And decide against me my reproach;

^{6 Ref} Know now, that God turned me upside down, And His net against me hath set round,

^{7 Ref} Lo, I cry out -- violence, and am not answered, I cry aloud, and there is no judgment.

^{8 Ref} My way He hedged up, and I pass not over, And on my paths darkness He placeth.

^{9 Ref} Mine honour from off me He hath stripped, And He turneth the crown from my head.

^{10 Ref} He breaketh me down round about, and I go, And removeth like a tree my hope.

^{11 Ref} And He kindleth against me His anger, And reckoneth me to Him as His adversaries.

^{12 Ref} Come in do His troops together, And they raise up against me their way, And encamp round about my tent.

^{13 Ref} My brethren from me He hath put far off, And mine acquaintances surely Have been estranged from me.

^{14 Ref} Ceased have my neighbours And my familiar friends have forgotten me,

^{15 Ref} Sojourners of my house and my maids, For a stranger reckon me: An alien I have been in their eyes.

^{16 Ref} To my servant I have called, And he doth not answer, With my mouth I make supplication to him.

^{17 Ref} My spirit is strange to my wife, And my favours to the sons of my `mother's' womb.

^{18 Ref} Also sucklings have despised me, I rise, and they speak against me.

^{19 Ref} Abominate me do all the men of my counsel, And those I have loved, Have been turned against me.

^{20 Ref} To my skin and to my flesh Cleaved hath my bone, And I deliver myself with the skin of my teeth.

^{21 Ref} Pity me, pity me, ye my friends, For the hand of God hath stricken against me.

^{22 Ref} Why do you pursue me as God? And with my flesh are not satisfied?

^{23 Ref} Who doth grant now, That my words may be written? Who doth grant that in a book they may be graven?

^{24 Ref} With a pen of iron and lead -- For ever in a rock they may be hewn.

^{25 Ref} That -- I have known my Redeemer, The Living and the Last, For the dust he doth rise.

^{26 Ref} And after my skin hath compassed this `body', Then from my flesh I see God:

^{27 Ref} Whom I -- I see on my side, And mine eyes have beheld, and not a stranger, Consumed have been my reins in my bosom.

^{28 Ref} But ye say, `Why do we pursue after him?' And the root of the matter hath been found in me.

^{29 Ref} Be ye afraid because of the sword, For furious `are' the punishments of the sword, That ye may know that `there is' a judgment.