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- ¶ THEN Job answered and said,
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- How long will you grieve my soul, and make me sick with words?
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- For behold, these ten times you have rebuked me;
and yet you are not ashamed that you make me sad.
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- If indeed I have erred, my error remains with myself.
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- If you have justly magnified yourselves against me, rebuked me, and reproached me,
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- Know then that God has condemned me, and spread his net over me.
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- If I howl, no one answers me;
and if I complain, there is no one to avenge me.
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- ¶ He has fenced up my ways so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness in my paths.
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- He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.
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- He has destroyed me on every side, and I am no more;
and my hope has he removed like a piece of tree.
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- He has also kindled his wrath against me, and he counts me as his enemy.
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- His messengers have come together against me;
they debated their ways against me, and encamped round about my tent.
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- My brothers are far off from me, and my acquaintances have deserted me.
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- My kinsfolk have failed me, and my familiar friends have forsaken me.
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- They that dwell in my house, and my maids, consider me as a stranger;
I am an alien in their sight.
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- I called my servant, and he gave me no answer;
I entreated him with my mouth and implored him.
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- I have become a stranger to my wife, and have implored the children of my own body.
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- Yea, even the wicked despise me;
when I rise, they speak against me.
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- All my counselors abhor me;
even my friends have turned against me.
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- My skin and my flesh cleave to my bones, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.
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- Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O you my friends;
for the hand of God has been against me.
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- Why do you also persecute me like God, and you are not satisfied with the hurt of my flesh?
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- ¶ Oh that my words were now written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a scroll!
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- That they were engraved with an iron pen on lead or in the rock for ever!
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- For I know that my Saviour lives, and at the end he will reveal himself upon the earth;
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- Although devouring worms have covered my skin and my flesh,
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- Yet, if my eyes shall see God, then my heart also will see the light;
but now my body is consumed.
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- For you will say, Why did we persecute him?
For a good report will follow me and vindicate me.
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- Spare yourselves from the sword;
for the wrath of sinners is a sword; for you shall yet know that there is judgment.
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