Job 16
1 Then Job answered:
Then responded Job, and said: —
2 “I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all.
I have heard many such things, Wearisome comforters, are ye all!
3 Is there no end to your long-winded speeches? What provokes you to continue testifying?
Is there to be an end to windy words? Or what so strongly exciteth thee, that thou must respond?
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 also, like you, could speak, —If your soul were in the place of my soul, I could string together words against you, and could therewith shake over you my head.
5 But I would encourage you with my mouth, and the consolation of my lips would bring relief.
I could make you determined, by my mouth, and then my lip-solace should restrain you.
6 Even if I speak, my pain is not relieved, and if I hold back, how will it go away?
Though I do speak, unassuaged is my stinging pain, —And, if I forbear, of what am I relieved?
7 Surely He has now exhausted me; You have devastated all my family.
But, now, hath he wearied me, thou hast destroyed all my family;
8 You have bound me, and it has become a witness; my frailty rises up and testifies against me.
And, having captured me, it hath served, as a witness; and so my wasting away hath risen up against me, in my face, it answereth.
9 His anger has torn me and opposed me; He gnashes His teeth at me. My adversary pierces me with His eyes.
His anger, hath torn and persecuted me, He hath gnashed upon me with his teeth, Mine adversary, hath sharpened his eyes for me.
10 They open their mouths against me and strike my cheeks with contempt; they join together against me.
They have gaped upon me with their mouth, With reproach, have they smitten my cheek, Together, against me, have they closed their ranks.
11 God has delivered me to unjust men; He has thrown me to the clutches of the wicked.
GOD doth abandon me to him that is perverse, and, into the hands of the lawless, he throweth me headlong.
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;
At ease, was I when he shattered me, Yea he seized me by my neck, and dashed me in pieces, then set me up for himself as a mark:
13 His archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my gall on the ground.
His archers came round against me, He clave asunder my reins, and spared not, He poured out, on the earth, my gall:
14 He breaks me with wound upon wound; He rushes me like a mighty warrior.
He made a breach in me, breach upon breach, He ran upon me, like a mighty man.
15 I have sewn sackcloth over my skin; I have buried my horn in the dust.
Sackcloth, sewed I on my skin, and rolled—in the dust—my horn:
16 My face is red with weeping, and deep shadows ring my eyes;
My face, is reddened from weeping, and, upon mine eyelashes, is the death-shade: —
17 yet my hands are free of violence and my prayer is pure.
Though no violence was in my hands, and, my prayer, was pure.
18 O earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry for help never be laid to rest.
O earth! do not cover my blood, and let there be no place for mine outcry.
19 Even now my witness is in heaven, and my advocate is on high.
Even now, lo! in the heavens, is my witness,
20 My friends are my scoffers as my eyes pour out tears to God.
And, he that voucheth for me is on high. My friends are, they who scorn me, Unto GOD, hath mine eye shed tears: —
21 Oh, that a man might plead with God as he pleads with his neighbor!
That one might plead, for a man, with GOD, —Even a son of man, for his friend!
22 For when only a few years are past I will go the way of no return.
When, a few years, come, then, by a path by which I shall not return, shall I depart.
