Job 16

¹Then Job answered and said :

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

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

⁴I 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

²¹that he would argue the case of a man with God , as a son of man does with his neighbor .

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