Job 16

¹ Then Job answered and said:

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

³ Will there be an end to windy words?
Or what provokes you to answer?

⁴ I also could speak as you do,
if your soul were in my soul's place;
I could heap up words against you
and shake my head at you.

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

⁶ If I speak, my pain is not relieved;
and if I hold back, how much of it leaves me?

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

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

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

¹⁰ They have gaped at me with their mouths;
they have struck my cheek in contempt;
they mass themselves together against me.

¹¹ God gives me over to the ungodly
and hurls me into the hands of the wicked.

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

¹³ His archers surround me;
he pierces my kidneys without mercy;
he pours out my gall on the ground.

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

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

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

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

¹⁸ O earth, do not cover my blood,
let my cry find no resting place!

¹⁹ Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven;
my advocate is on high.

²⁰ My interpreter is my friend;
my eye pours out tears to God,

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

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