2 

“How long will you harrow my soul,

and crush me with your words?

3 

Time and again you have taunted me,

you have wronged me shamelessly.

4 

Supposing I have sinned,

does my sin concern you?

5 

Are you to lord it over me,

and to reproach me with my misery?

6 

Understand, it is God who has undone me,

spreading his nets around me.

7 

I cry out ‘Murder’!--there is no reply;

I call for help, and get no justice.

8 

He has blocked up my road,

he has darkened my path,

9 

he has stripped me of honour,

he has degraded me,

10 

he has demolished me,

and torn my hope up by the roots;

11 

he has flamed in wrath at me,

treating me as a foe;

12 

on his troops come, in a swarm,

bent on besieging me!

13 

My clansmen have abandoned me,

my friends are all estranged,

14 

my kinsmen will not own me,

and my guests ignore me;

15 

maids of mine treat me like a stranger,

to them I am an alien;

16 

my serf will not obey my orders,

I have humbly to entreat him;

17 

my breath is loathsome to my very wife,

my smell is hateful to my children;

18 

even young lads despise me,

when I draw near they run away;

19 

all my intimates detest me,

men I love turn against me.

20 

My skin is clinging to my bones,

my teeth are falling out.

21 

Have pity on me, O my friends, have pity,

for God’s own hand has struck me.

22 

Why persecute me like God,

as if no slander were enough for you?

23 

Oh that my defence were written,

oh that my case could be preserved in writing,

24 

cut with an iron pen on lead,

or lastingly engraved on stone!

25 

Still, I know One to champion me at last,

to stand up for me upon earth.

26 

This body may break up, but 26 even then

my life shall have a sight of God;

my heart is pining as I yearn

27 

to see him on my side,

see him estranged no longer.

28 

O you who think to run me down,

to blame me for my sufferings,

29 

beware of your false charges!

Such slanders call for God’s own sword,

to teach you impious men what the Almighty is.”