Job 16

¹ Then Job answered:

² "I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all.

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

⁴ I also could speak as you do, if you were in my place; I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you.

⁵ I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.

⁶ "If I speak, my pain is not assuaged, and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?

⁷ Surely now God has worn me out; he has made desolate all my company.

⁸ And he has shriveled me up, which is a witness against me; and my leanness has risen up against me, it testifies to my face.

⁹ He has torn me in his wrath, and hated me; he has gnashed his teeth at me; my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.

¹⁰ Men have gaped at me with their mouth, they have struck me insolently upon the cheek, they mass themselves together against me.

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

¹² I was at ease, and he broke me asunder; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces; he set me up as his target,

¹³ his archers surround me. He slashes open my kidneys, and does not spare; he pours out my gall on the ground.

¹⁴ He breaks me with breach upon breach; he runs upon me like a warrior.

¹⁵ I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and have laid my strength in the dust.

¹⁶ My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is deep darkness;

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

¹⁸ "O earth, cover not my blood, and let my cry find no resting place.

¹⁹ Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he that vouches for me is on high.

²⁰ My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God,

²¹ that he would maintain the right of a man with God, like that of a man with his neighbor.

²² For when a few years have come I shall go the way whence I shall not return.