² ‘Please stop speaking to me like that!
    Your words continue to make me suffer.
³ You have insulted me many, many times.
    You should be ashamed to attack me like that.
⁴ I might have done things that are wrong.
But even if that might be true,
    those wrong things have not hurt you.
⁵ You think that you are better people than I am.
Because I have all these troubles,
    you say that I must be guilty.
⁶ But you should realize that God has caused all my troubles.
    He is the one who has caught me in his trap.

⁷ If I shout, “Help me, I am in trouble!”
    nobody answers me.
I shout to get help,
    but nobody comes to give me justice.
⁸ God has stopped me
    so that I cannot move forward.
He has made my path dark
    so that I cannot see the way to go.
⁹ He has taken away my honour
    so that nobody respects me.
¹⁰ Everywhere that I go, God is there to attack me.
    He is ready to destroy me.
He has taken away my hope,
    as if he has dug a tree out of the ground.
¹¹ He is very angry against me.
    He attacks me as if I am his enemy.
¹² His whole army is coming to attack me!
They build a road so that they can reach me.
    They are all around me.

¹³ God has caused my brothers to stay away from me.
    My friends do not want to meet me.
¹⁴ My relatives have left me.
    My best friends have forgotten me.
¹⁵ Visitors who stayed in my house
    now think that I am a stranger.
Even my servants think that I am a foreigner.
¹⁶ I tell my servant to come to me
    but he does not come.
I ask him to help me,
    but he does nothing.
¹⁷ My wife moves away from the smell of my breath.
    My brothers stay away from me.
¹⁸ Even young children insult me.
    When I stand up, they laugh at me.
¹⁹ My best friends hate me.
    People that I love have turned against me.
²⁰ My body is now only skin and bones.
    I still breathe but I am only just alive.
²¹ Please be kind to me, my friends.
God has caused me to suffer,
    so please be kind to me.
²² Do not punish me as God is punishing me.
    You have already caused me to suffer enough.

²³ Someone should write down the words that I speak.
    My words should be written on a scroll.
²⁴ If someone uses an iron tool to write them on a rock,
    that would be good.
Then they would never disappear.
²⁵ As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives.^[b]
    I know that, in the end, he will stand on the earth.
²⁶ Illness may completely destroy my skin.
But after that happens,
    I know that in this body I will see God.
²⁷ I will see him for myself,
    with my own eyes.
It makes me feel weak inside as I think about it!
²⁸ My friends, you should not think of ways to make me suffer even more.
    You say that I have caused my own trouble.
²⁹ Instead, you yourselves should be afraid of punishment!
When God is angry with someone,
    he punishes that person.
Then you will know that he is the one who judges people.’