Job 16
1 Then Job answered:
Then Job, answering, said:
2 “I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all.
I have often heard such things; you are all aggravating comforters.
3 Is there no end to your long-winded speeches? What provokes you to continue testifying?
Will there be no end to windy words? Or is it at all a burden to you, if you speak?
4 I could also speak like you if you were in my place; I could heap up words against you and shake my head at you.
I, too, can speak like you; and I also wish that your soul favored my soul. I would also comfort you with speeches and would wag my head over you.
5 But I would encourage you with my mouth, and the consolation of my lips would bring relief.
I would strengthen you with my mouth, and would move my lips, as if being lenient to you.
6 Even if I speak, my pain is not relieved, and if I hold back, how will it go away?
But what can I do? When I am speaking, my grief will not be quiet; and if I am quiet, it will not withdraw from me.
7 Surely He has now exhausted me; You have devastated all my family.
But now my grief has crushed me, and all my limbs have been reduced to nothing.
8 You have bound me, and it has become a witness; my frailty rises up and testifies against me.
My wrinkles bear witness against me, and a liar rises up against my face, contradicting me.
9 His anger has torn me and opposed me; He gnashes His teeth at me. My adversary pierces me with His eyes.
He has gathered together his fury towards me, and, threatening me, he has roared against me with his teeth; my enemy has beheld me with terrible eyes.
10 They open their mouths against me and strike my cheeks with contempt; they join together against me.
They have opened their mouths against me, and, reproaching me, they have struck me on the cheek; they are nourished by my sufferings.
11 God has delivered me to unjust men; He has thrown me to the clutches of the wicked.
God has confined me with the immoral, and he has delivered me into the hands of the impious.
12 I was at ease, but He shattered me; He seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has set me up as His target;
I, who once was wealthy, am now crushed. He has grabbed me by my neck; he has broken me and has placed me before him as a sign.
13 His archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my gall on the ground.
He has surrounded me with his lances. He has severely wounded my lower back, he has not been lenient, and he has poured out my organs upon the earth.
14 He breaks me with wound upon wound; He rushes me like a mighty warrior.
He has cut me with wound after wound. He has rushed upon me like a giant.
15 I have sewn sackcloth over my skin; I have buried my horn in the dust.
I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and I have covered my body with ashes.
16 My face is red with weeping, and deep shadows ring my eyes;
My face is swollen from weeping, and my eyelids have dimmed my vision.
17 yet my hands are free of violence and my prayer is pure.
These things I have endured without iniquity in my hand, while I held pure prayers before God.
18 O earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry for help never be laid to rest.
O earth, do not conceal my blood, nor let my outcry find a hiding place in you.
19 Even now my witness is in heaven, and my advocate is on high.
For behold, my witness is in heaven, and my confidante is on high.
20 My friends are my scoffers as my eyes pour out tears to God.
My friends are full of words; my eye rains tears upon God.
21 Oh, that a man might plead with God as he pleads with his neighbor!
And I wish that a man might be so judged before God, just as the son of man is judged with his assistant!
22 For when only a few years are past I will go the way of no return.
For behold, a few years pass by, and I am walking a path by which I will not return.
