¹ I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

² He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.

³ Surely against me he turns his hand again and again all the day.

⁴ My flesh and my skin has he made old; he has broken my bones.

⁵ He has built against me, and surrounded me with gall and travail.

⁶ He has made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead.

⁷ He has walled me about, that I can't go forth; he has made my chain heavy.

⁸ Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.

⁹ He has walled up my ways with cut stone; he has made my paths crooked.

¹⁰ He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places.

¹¹ He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces; he has made me desolate.

¹² He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

¹³ He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.

¹⁴ I am become a derision to all my people, and their song all the day.

¹⁵ He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.

¹⁶ He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered me with ashes.

¹⁷ You have removed my soul far off from peace; I forgot prosperity.

¹⁸ I said, My strength is perished, and my expectation from Yahweh.

¹⁹ Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

²⁰ My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.

²¹ This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope.

²² [It is of] Yahweh's loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn't fail.

²³ They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

²⁴ Yahweh is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

²⁵ Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.

²⁶ It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.

²⁷ It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

²⁸ Let him sit alone and keep silence, because he has laid it on him.

²⁹ Let him put his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope.

³⁰ Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him; let him be filled full with reproach.

³¹ For the Lord will not cast off forever.

³² For though he cause grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.

³³ For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.

³⁴ To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,

³⁵ To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High,

³⁶ To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn't approve.

³⁷ Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn't command it?

³⁸ Doesn't evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?

³⁹ Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

⁴⁰ Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Yahweh.

⁴¹ Let us lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.

⁴² We have transgressed and have rebelled; you have not pardoned.

⁴³ You have covered with anger and pursued us; you have killed, you have not pitied.

⁴⁴ You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.

⁴⁵ You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.

⁴⁶ All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.

⁴⁷ Fear and the pit are come on us, devastation and destruction.

⁴⁸ My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

⁴⁹ My eye pours down, and doesn't cease, without any intermission,

⁵⁰ Until Yahweh look down, and see from heaven.

⁵¹ My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.

⁵² They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.

⁵³ They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me.

⁵⁴ Waters flowed over my head; I said, I am cut off.

⁵⁵ I called on your name, Yahweh, out of the lowest dungeon.

⁵⁶ You heard my voice; don't hide your ear at my breathing, at my cry.

⁵⁷ You drew near in the day that I called on you; you said, Don't be afraid.

⁵⁸ Lord, you have pleaded the causes of my soul; you have redeemed my life.

⁵⁹ Yahweh, you have seen my wrong. Judge my cause.

⁶⁰ You have seen all their vengeance and all their devices against me.

⁶¹ You have heard their reproach, Yahweh, and all their devices against me,

⁶² The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day.

⁶³ You see their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their song.

⁶⁴ You will render to them a recompense, Yahweh, according to the work of their hands.

⁶⁵ You will give them hardness of heart, your curse to them.

⁶⁶ You will pursue them in anger, and destroy them from under the heavens of Yahweh.

¹ Then Job answered,

² "Truly I know that it is so, but how can man be just with God?

³ If he is pleased to contend with him, he can't answer him one time in a thousand.

⁴ God who is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who has hardened himself against him, and prospered?

⁵ He removes the mountains, and they don't know it, when he overturns them in his anger.

⁶ He shakes the earth out of its place. Its pillars tremble.

⁷ He commands the sun, and it doesn't rise, and seals up the stars.

⁸ He alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea.

⁹ He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the rooms of the south.

¹⁰ He does great things past finding out; yes, marvelous things without number.

¹¹ Behold, he goes by me, and I don't see him. He passes on also, but I don't perceive him.

¹² Behold, he snatches away. Who can hinder him? Who will ask him, 'What are you doing?'

¹³ "God will not withdraw his anger. The helpers of Rahab stoop under him.

¹⁴ How much less shall I answer him, And choose my words to argue with him?

¹⁵ Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn't answer him. I would make supplication to my judge.

¹⁶ If I had called, and he had answered me, yet I wouldn't believe that he listened to my voice.

¹⁷ For he breaks me with a storm, and multiplies my wounds without cause.

¹⁸ He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness.

¹⁹ If it is a matter of strength, behold, he is mighty! If of justice, 'Who,' says he, 'will summon me?'

²⁰ Though I am righteous, my own mouth shall condemn me. Though I am blameless, it shall prove me perverse.

²¹ I am blameless. I don't respect myself. I despise my life.

²² "It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked.

²³ If the scourge kills suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent.

²⁴ The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of its judges. If not he, then who is it?

²⁵ "Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away, they see no good,

²⁶ They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey.

²⁷ If I say, 'I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and cheer up;'

²⁸ I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that you will not hold me innocent.

²⁹ I shall be condemned. Why then do I labor in vain?

³⁰ If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye,

³¹ yet you will plunge me in the ditch. My own clothes shall abhor me.

³² For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgment.

³³ There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both.

³⁴ Let him take his rod away from me. Let his terror not make me afraid;

³⁵ then I would speak, and not fear him, for I am not so in myself.