Job

¹ Job answered:

² if you could pile the whole bitter load on the scales,

³ Is it any wonder that I'm screaming like a caged cat?

⁴ poison arrows—and I'm poisoned all through! God has dumped the whole works on me.

⁵ so don't expect me to keep quiet in this.

⁶ It's enough to turn anyone's stomach!

⁷ it makes me sick.

⁸ a last request to be honored:

⁹ and be done with me for good.

¹⁰ of not having blasphemed the Holy God, before being pressed past the limits.

¹¹ What future do I have to keep me going?

¹² Do you think I'm made of iron?

¹³ Why, I don't even have any boots!

¹⁴ their friends, at least, should stick with them.

¹⁵ one day they're gushing with water

¹⁶ cascading out of the mountains,

¹⁷ gullies baked dry in the sun.

¹⁸ end up in a waterless gulch and die of thirst.

¹⁹ tourists from Sheba hope for a cool drink.

²⁰ They get there, and their faces fall!

²¹ there's nothing to you! One look at a hard scene and you shrink in fear.

²² I didn't ask you for one red cent—

²³ So why all this dodging and shuffling?

²⁴ show me where I've gone off the track.

²⁵ but what's the point of all this pious bluster?

²⁶ but treat my words of anguish as so much hot air.

²⁷ Are friends just items of profit and loss?

²⁸ Do you think I'd lie to your face?

²⁹ Think carefully—my integrity is on the line!

³⁰ Don't you trust me to discern good from evil?