18. Even young children despise me.If I arise, they speak against me.
19. All my familiar friends abhor me.They whom I loved have turned against me.
20. My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh.I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21. “Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends;for the hand of God has touched me.
22. Why do you persecute me as God,and are not satisfied with my flesh?
23. “Oh that my words were now written!Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
24. That with an iron pen and leadthey were engraved in the rock forever!
25. But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives.In the end, he will stand upon the earth.
26. After my skin is destroyed,then in my flesh shall I see God,
27. Whom I, even I, shall see on my side.My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger.“My heart is consumed within me.
28. If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’because the root of the matter is found in me,