Chapter 16

¹Then Job answered,

²“I have heard many such things.

Miserable comforters are you all!

³Shall vain words have an end?

Or what provokes you that you answer?

⁴I also could speak as you do.

If your soul were in my soul’s place,

I could join words together against you,

And shake my head at you.

⁵But I would strengthen you with my mouth.

The solace of my lips would relieve you.

⁶“Though I speak, my grief is not subsided.

Though I forbear, what am I eased?

⁷But now, God, you have surely worn me out.

You have made desolate all my company.

⁸You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me.

My leanness rises up against me,

It testifies to my face.

⁹He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me;

He has gnashed on me with his teeth:

My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.

¹⁰They have gaped on me with their mouth;

They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully.

They gather themselves together against me.

¹¹God delivers me to the ungodly,

And casts me into the hands of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, and he broke me apart.

Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces.

He has also set me up for his target.

¹³His archers surround me.

He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare.

He pours out my gall on the ground.

¹⁴He breaks me with breach on breach.

He runs on me like a giant.

¹⁵I have sewed sackcloth on my skin,

And have thrust my horn in the dust.

¹⁶My face is red with weeping.

Deep darkness is on my eyelids.

¹⁷Although there is no violence in my hands,

And my prayer is pure.

¹⁸“Earth, don’t cover my blood,

Let my cry have no place to rest.

¹⁹Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven.

He who vouches for me is on high.

²⁰My friends scoff at me.

My eyes pour out tears to God,

²¹That he would maintain the right of a man with God,

Of a son of man with his neighbor!

²²For when a few years are come,

I shall go the way from whence I shall not return.