Job 16

 

Job 16

1 Then Job replied:

² “I have heard many things like these; you are miserable comforters, all of you!

³ Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?

⁴ I also could speak like you, if you were in my place;
I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you.

⁵ But 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.

⁷ Surely, God, you have worn me out; you have devastated my entire household.

⁸ You have shriveled me up—and it has become a witness; my gauntness rises up and testifies against me.

⁹ God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.

¹⁰ People open their mouths to jeer at me; they strike my cheek in scorn and unite together against me.

¹¹ God has turned me over to the ungodly and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked.

¹² All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target;

¹³ his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground.

¹⁴ Again 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.

¹⁶ My face is red with weeping, dark shadows ring my eyes;

¹⁷ yet 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!

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

²⁰ My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God;

²¹ on 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.