Job 16

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 neighbour!

²²For when a few years have come,

I will go the way of no return.