1: Job answered:
2: "If my misery could be weighed, if you could pile the whole bitter load on the scales,
3: It would be heavier than all the sand of the sea! Is it any wonder that I'm screaming like a caged cat?
4: The arrows of God Almighty are in me, poison arrows--and I'm poisoned all through! God has dumped the whole works on me.
5: Donkeys bray and cows moo when they run out of pasture--so don't expect me to keep quiet in this.
6: Do you see what God has dished out for me? It's enough to turn anyone's stomach!
7: Everything in me is repulsed by it--it makes me sick.
8: "All I want is an answer to one prayer, a last request to be honored:
9: Let God step on me--squash me like a bug, and be done with me for good.
10: I'd at least have the satisfaction of not having blasphemed the Holy God, before being pressed past the limits.
11: Where's the strength to keep my hopes up? What future do I have to keep me going?
12: Do you think I have nerves of steel? Do you think I'm made of iron?
13: Do you think I can pull myself up by my bootstraps? Why, I don't even have any boots!
14: "When desperate people give up on God Almighty, their friends, at least, should stick with them.
15: But my brothers are fickle as a gulch in the desert--one day they're gushing with water
16: From melting ice and snow cascading out of the mountains,
17: But by midsummer they're dry, gullies baked dry in the sun.
18: Travelers who spot them and go out of their way for a drink, end up in a waterless gulch and die of thirst.
19: Merchant caravans from Tema see them and expect water, tourists from Sheba hope for a cool drink.
20: They arrive so confident--but what a disappointment! They get there, and their faces fall!
21: And you, my so-called friends, are no better--there's nothing to you! One look at a hard scene and you shrink in fear.
22: It's not as though I asked you for anything--I didn't ask you for one red cent--
23: Nor did I beg you to go out on a limb for me. So why all this dodging and shuffling?
24: "Confront me with the truth and I'll shut up, show me where I've gone off the track.
25: Honest words never hurt anyone, but what's the point of all this pious bluster?
26: You pretend to tell me what's wrong with my life, but treat my words of anguish as so much hot air.
27: Are people mere things to you? Are friends just items of profit and loss?
28: "Look me in the eyes! Do you think I'd lie to your face?
29: Think it over--no double-talk! Think carefully--my integrity is on the line!
30: Can you detect anything false in what I say? Don't you trust me to discern good from evil?