New Living Translation NLT
The Message Bible MSG
1 Then Job spoke again:
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Job answered:
2 “How long will you torture me? How long will you try to crush me with your words?
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"How long are you going to keep battering away at me, pounding me with these harangues?
3 You have already insulted me ten times. You should be ashamed of treating me so badly.
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Time after time after time you jump all over me. Do you have no conscience, abusing me like this?
4 Even if I have sinned, that is my concern, not yours.
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Even if I have, somehow or other, gotten off the track, what business is that of yours?
5 You think you’re better than I am, using my humiliation as evidence of my sin.
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Why do you insist on putting me down, using my troubles as a stick to beat me?
6 But it is God who has wronged me, capturing me in his net.
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Tell it to God - he's the one behind all this, he's the one who dragged me into this mess.
7 “I cry out, ‘Help!’ but no one answers me. I protest, but there is no justice.
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"Look at me - I shout 'Murder!' and I'm ignored; I call for help and no one bothers to stop.
8 God has blocked my way so I cannot move. He has plunged my path into darkness.
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God threw a barricade across my path - I'm stymied; he turned out all the lights - I'm stuck in the dark.
9 He has stripped me of my honor and removed the crown from my head.
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He destroyed my reputation, robbed me of all self-respect.
10 He has demolished me on every side, and I am finished. He has uprooted my hope like a fallen tree.
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He tore me apart piece by piece - I'm ruined! Then he yanked out hope by the roots.
11 His fury burns against me; he counts me as an enemy.
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He's angry with me - oh, how he's angry! He treats me like his worst enemy.
12 His troops advance. They build up roads to attack me. They camp all around my tent.
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He has launched a major campaign against me, using every weapon he can think of, coming at me from all sides at once. I Know That God Lives
13 “My relatives stay far away, and my friends have turned against me.
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"God alienated my family from me;
14 My family is gone, and my close friends have forgotten me.
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everyone who knows me avoids me. My relatives and friends have all left; houseguests forget I ever existed.
15 My servants and maids consider me a stranger. I am like a foreigner to them.
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The servant girls treat me like a bum off the street, look at me like they've never seen me before.
16 When I call my servant, he doesn’t come; I have to plead with him!
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I call my attendant and he ignores me, ignores me even though I plead with him.
17 My breath is repulsive to my wife. I am rejected by my own family.
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My wife can't stand to be around me anymore. I'm repulsive to my family.
18 Even young children despise me. When I stand to speak, they turn their backs on me.
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Even street urchins despise me; when I come out, they taunt and jeer.
19 My close friends detest me. Those I loved have turned against me.
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Everyone I've ever been close to abhors me; my dearest loved ones reject me.
20 I have been reduced to skin and bones and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth.
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I'm nothing but a bag of bones; my life hangs by a thread.
21 “Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for the hand of God has struck me.
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"Oh, friends, dear friends, take pity on me. God has come down hard on me!
22 Must you also persecute me, like God does? Haven’t you chewed me up enough?
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Do you have to be hard on me too? Don't you ever tire of abusing me?
23 “Oh, that my words could be recorded. Oh, that they could be inscribed on a monument,
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"If only my words were written in a book -
24 carved with an iron chisel and filled with lead, engraved forever in the rock.
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better yet, chiseled in stone!
25 “But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last.
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Still, I know that God lives - the One who gives me back my life - and eventually he'll take his stand on earth.
26 And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God!
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And I'll see him - even though I get skinned alive! -
27 I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!
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see God myself, with my very own eyes. Oh, how I long for that day!
28 “How dare you go on persecuting me, saying, ‘It’s his own fault’?
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"If you're thinking, 'How can we get through to him, get him to see that his trouble is all his own fault?'
29 You should fear punishment yourselves, for your attitude deserves punishment. Then you will know that there is indeed a judgment.”
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Forget it. Start worrying about yourselves. Worry about your own sins and God's coming judgment, for judgment is most certainly on the way."
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by
Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.