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- Then Job responded,
- "How long will you torment me And crush me with words?
- "These ten times you have insulted me; You are not ashamed to wrong me.
- "Even if I have truly erred, My error lodges with me.
- "If indeed you vaunt yourselves against me And prove my disgrace to me,
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- Know then that God has wronged me And has closed His net around me.
- "Behold, I cry, 'Violence!' but I get no answer; I shout for help, but there is no justice.
- "He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, And He has put darkness on my paths.
- "He has stripped my honor from me And removed the crown from my head.
- "He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; And He has uprooted my hope like a tree.
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- "He has also kindled His anger against me And considered me as His enemy.
- "His troops come together, And build up their way against me And camp around my tent.
- "He has removed my brothers far from me, And my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
- "My relatives have failed, And my intimate friends have forgotten me.
- "Those who live in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am a foreigner in their sight.
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- "I call to my servant, but he does not answer; I have to implore him with my mouth.
- "My breath is offensive to my wife, And I am loathsome to my own brothers.
- "Even young children despise me; I rise up and they speak against me.
- "All my associates abhor me, And those I love have turned against me.
- "My bone clings to my skin and my flesh, And I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.
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- "Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, For the hand of God has struck me.
- "Why do you persecute me as God does, And are not satisfied with my flesh?
- "Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
- "That with an iron stylus and lead They were engraved in the rock forever!
- "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth.
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- "Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God;
- Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!
- "If you say, 'How shall we persecute him?' And 'What pretext for a case against him can we find?'
- "Then be afraid of the sword for yourselves, For wrath brings the punishment of the sword, So that you may know there is judgment."
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