Job 16

Job Replies: Miserable Comforters Are You

1 Then Job answered and said:

2 “I have heard ^amany such things;
^bmiserable comforters are you all.
3 Shall ^cwindy words have an end?
Or what provokes you that you answer?
4 I also could speak as you do,
if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you
and ^dshake my head at you.
5 I could strengthen you with my mouth,
and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.
6 “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
7 Surely now God has worn me out;
^ehe has ^{▼▼Hebrew you have; also verse 8} made desolate all my company.
8 And he has shriveled me up,
which is ^ga witness against me,
and my ^hleanness has risen up against me;
it testifies to my face.
9 He has ⁱtorn me in his wrath ^jand hated me;
he has ^kgnashed his teeth at me;
my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
10 Men have ^lgaped at me with their mouth;
they have ^mstruck me insolently on the cheek;
they ⁿmass themselves together against me.
11 God gives me up to the ungodly
and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
12 I was at ease, and he broke me apart;
he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his ^otarget;
13 his ^parchers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys ^qand does not spare;
he ^rpours out my gall on the ground.
14 He breaks me with ^sbreach upon breach;
he ^truns upon me like a warrior.
15 I have sewed ^usackcloth upon my skin
and have laid ^vmy strength ^win the dust.
16 My face is red with weeping,
and on my eyelids is ^xdeep darkness,
17 although there is no ^yviolence in my hands,
and my prayer is pure.
18 “O earth, ^zcover not my blood,
and let my ^aacry find no resting place.
19 Even now, behold, my ^abwitness is in heaven,
and he who testifies for me is ^acon high.
20 My friends ^adscorn me;
my eye pours out tears to God,
21 that he would ^aeargue the case of a man with God,
as ^{▼▼Hebrew and} a son of man does with his neighbor.
22 For when a few years have come
I shall go the way ^agfrom which I shall not return.