Though I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice.
How long, O LORD, must I call for help but You do not hear, or cry out to You, “Violence!” but You do not save?
Even when I cry out and plead for help, He shuts out my prayer.
Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me.
(Oh, that I had one to hear me! Here is my signature. Let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser compose an indictment.
Would you really annul My justice? Would you condemn Me to justify yourself?
I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer; when I stand up, You merely look at me.
For Job has declared, ‘I am righteous, yet God has deprived me of justice.
If only I knew where to find Him, so that I could go to His seat.
I cry out by day, O my God, but You do not answer, and by night, but I have no rest.
Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. I will still defend my ways to His face.
For He is not a man like me, that I can answer Him, that we can take each other to court.
Oh, that a man might plead with God as he pleads with his neighbor!
If I am guilty, woe to me! And even if I am righteous, I cannot lift my head. I am full of shame and aware of my afflict
yet my hands are free of violence and my prayer is pure.
The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; He blindfolds its judges. If it is not He, then who is it?
Does it please You to oppress me, to reject the work of Your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked?
For whenever I speak, I cry out; I proclaim violence and destruction. For the word of the LORD has become to me a reproa