Job 16

Job Decries His Comforters

¹Then Job answered:

²“I have heard many things like these;

miserable comforters are you all.

³Is there no end to your long-winded speeches?

What provokes you to continue testifying?

⁴I could also speak like you

if you were in my place;

I could heap up words against you

and shake my head at you.

⁵But I would encourage you with my mouth,

and the consolation of my lips would bring relief.

⁶Even if I speak, my pain is not relieved,

and if I hold back, how will it go away?

⁷Surely He has now exhausted me;

You have devastated all my family.

⁸You have bound me, and it has become a witness;

my frailty rises up and testifies against me.

⁹His anger has torn me and opposed me;

He gnashes His teeth at me.

My adversary pierces me with His eyes.

¹⁰They open their mouths against me

and strike my cheeks with contempt;

they join together against me.

¹¹God has delivered me to unjust men;

He has thrown me to the clutches of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, but He shattered me;

He seized me by the neck and crushed me.

He has set me up as His target;

¹³His archers surround me.

He pierces my kidneys without mercy

and spills my gall on the ground.

¹⁴He breaks me with wound upon wound;

He rushes me like a mighty warrior.

¹⁵I have sewn sackcloth over my skin;

I have buried my horn in the dust.

¹⁶My face is red with weeping,

and deep shadows ring my eyes;

¹⁷yet my hands are free of violence

and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸O earth, do not cover my blood;

may my cry for help never be laid to rest.1

¹⁹Even now my witness is in heaven,

and my advocate is on high.

²⁰My friends are my scoffers

as my eyes pour out tears to God.

²¹Oh, that a man might plead with God

as he pleads with his neighbor!

²²For when only a few years are past

I will go the way of no return.