Job 16

Job

¹Then Job replied:

²“I have heard many things like these;

you are miserable comforters, all of you!

³Will your long-winded speeches never end?

What ails you that you keep on arguing?

⁴I also could speak like you,

if you were in my place;

I could make fine speeches against you

and shake my head at you.

⁵But my mouth would encourage you;

comfort from my lips would bring you relief.

⁶“Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved;

and if I refrain, it does not go away.

⁷Surely, God, you have worn me out;

you have devastated my entire household.

⁸You have shriveled me up—and it has become a witness;

my gauntness rises up and testifies against me.

⁹God assails me and tears me in his anger

and gnashes his teeth at me;

my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.

¹⁰People open their mouths to jeer at me;

they strike my cheek in scorn

and unite together against me.

¹¹God has turned me over to the ungodly

and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked.

¹²All was well with me, but he shattered me;

he seized me by the neck and crushed me.

He has made me his target;

¹³his archers surround me.

Without pity, he pierces my kidneys

and spills my gall on the ground.

¹⁴Again and again he bursts upon me;

he rushes at me like a warrior.

¹⁵“I have sewed sackcloth over my skin

and buried my brow in the dust.

¹⁶My face is red with weeping,

dark shadows ring my eyes;

¹⁷yet my hands have been free of violence

and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸“Earth, do not cover my blood;

may my cry never be laid to rest!

¹⁹Even now my witness is in heaven;

my advocate is on high.

²⁰My intercessor is my friend

as my eyes pour out tears to God;

²¹on behalf of a man he pleads with God

as one pleads for a friend.

²²“Only a few years will pass

before I take the path of no return.