19. All the men of my council and my familiar friends abhor me; those whom I loved are turned against me.
20. My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped with the skin or gums of my teeth.
21. Have pity on me! Have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!
22. Why do you, as if you were God, pursue and persecute me? [Acting like wild beasts] why are you not satisfied with my flesh?
23. Oh, that the words I now speak were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book [carved on a tablet of stone]!
24. That with an iron pen and [molten] lead they were graven in the rock forever!
25. For I know that my Redeemer and Vindicator lives, and at last He [the Last One] will stand upon the earth. [Isa. 44:6; 48:12.]
26. And after my skin, even this body, has been destroyed, then from my flesh or without it I shall see God,
27. Whom I, even I, shall see for myself and on my side! And my eyes shall behold Him, and not as a stranger! My heart pines away and is consumed within me.
28. If you say, How we will pursue him! [and continue to persecute me with the claim] that the root [cause] of all these [afflictions] is found in me,
29. Then beware and be afraid of the sword [of divine vengeance], for wrathful are the punishments of that sword, that you may know there is a judgment.