Job 16

¹Then Job answered,

²“I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!

³Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?

⁴I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,

⁵but I would strengthen you with my mouth. The solace of my lips would relieve you.

⁶“Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased?

⁷But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made all my company desolate.

⁸You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face.

⁹He has torn me in his wrath and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.

¹⁰They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me.

¹¹God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target.

¹³His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my bile on the ground.

¹⁴He breaks me with breach on breach. He runs at me like a giant.

¹⁵I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and have thrust my horn in the dust.

¹⁶My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids,

¹⁷although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸“Earth, don’t cover my blood. Let my cry have no place to rest.

¹⁹Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven. He who vouches for me is on high.

²⁰My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,

²¹that he would maintain the right of a man with God, of a son of man with his neighbor!

²²For when a few years have come, I will go the way of no return.