Job speaks:
How long will you torment me and crush me with words?
Shamelessly you attack me.
Surely you have spoken enought.
If I have sinned, then it is between me and God.
If you want to use my suffereing to prove that you are more holy than me,
If you want to take my pain as an opportunity to humiliate me,
then know this...
God has sent this suffering to me even though I don't deserve it!
He has trapped me even though I haven't done the things that you say I have!
I cry out to him but get no answer.
I ask for help but do not get justice.
He has placed me in darkness.
He has destroyed my reputation.
He tears away at everything I have and everything I am.
He considers me an enemy.
His troops attack me.
He has alienated my brothers from me.
Everyone has abandoned me.
My casual friends -
my servants -
my close friends -
They have all forgotten me.
My guests and my employees - they all look at me as an alien and a stranger.
I ask for my servant but he doesn't answer.
I beg him to help me.
My own wife won't come near me!
My brothers hate me.
The little children hate me.
They make fun of me.
My closest friends hate me.
.
The people I love have turned against me.
I am withering away.
Have pity on me my friends.
God has struck me.
Why must you also attack me?
If only my side of the story were put in writing for all time.
In the end I would be shown to be pure.
I know that I have a living Redeemer!
In the end, He will stand upon the earth.
After my body is destroyed I will stand before God and see Him with my eyes!
I will see him face to face!
How my heart yearns for that day!
If you continue to hurt me
because you believe my suffering comes to me as a result of my sinfulness,
take care lest teh same fate meet you!
Are you really so much hollier than I?
Do you really deserve any better than I have received?
Next Chapter - Zophar defends his own holiness.
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