Job 16 / 42
- 1Then Job replied:
- 2"I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all!
- 3Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?
- 4I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you.
- 5But 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.
- 7Surely, O God, you have worn me out; you have devastated my entire household.
- 8You have bound me-and it has become a witness; my gauntness rises up and testifies against me.
- 9God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.
- 10Men open their mouths to jeer at me; they strike my cheek in scorn and unite together against me.
- 11God has turned me over to evil men and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked.
- 12All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target;
- 13his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground.
- 14Again 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.
- 16My face is red with weeping, deep shadows ring my eyes;
- 17yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure.
- 18"O earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest!
- 19Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high.
- 20My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God;
- 21on behalf of a man he pleads with God as a man pleads for his friend.
- 22"Only a few years will pass before I go on the journey of no return.