18. Even young children despise me.If I stand up, they make fun of me.
19. All my closest friends are disgusted with me.Those I love have turned against me.
20. I am skin and bones,and I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.
21. “Have pity on me, my friends!Have pity on me because God’s hand has struck me down.
22. Why do you pursue me as God does?Why are you never satisfied with my flesh?
23. “I wish now my words were written.I wish they were inscribed on a scroll.
24. I wish they were forever engraved on a rockwith an iron stylus and lead.
25. But I know that my defender lives,and afterwards, he will rise on the earth.
26. Even after my skin has been stripped off my body,I will see God in my own flesh.
27. I will see him with my own eyes,not with someone else’s.My heart fails inside me!
28. “You say,‘We will persecute him!The root of the problem is found in him.’
29. Fear death,because ⌊your anger⌋ is punishable by death.Then you will know there is a judge.”