Job 16

Job Decries His Comforters

¹ Then Job answered:

² “I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all.

³ Is there no end to your long-winded speeches? What provokes you to continue testifying?

⁴ I could also speak like you if you were in my place; I could heap up words against you and shake my head at you.

⁵ But I would encourage you with my mouth, and the consolation of my lips would bring relief.

⁶ Even if I speak, my pain is not relieved, and if I hold back, how will it go away?

⁷ Surely He has now exhausted me; You have devastated all my family.

⁸ You have bound me, and it has become a witness; my frailty rises up and testifies against me.

⁹ His anger has torn me and opposed me; He gnashes His teeth at me. My adversary pierces me with His eyes.

¹⁰ They open their mouths against me and strike my cheeks with contempt; they join together against me.

¹¹ God has delivered me to unjust men; He has thrown me to the clutches of the wicked.

¹² I was at ease, but He shattered me; He seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has set me up as His target;

¹³ His archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my gall on the ground.

¹⁴ He breaks me with wound upon wound; He rushes me like a mighty warrior.

¹⁵ I have sewn sackcloth over my skin; I have buried my horn in the dust.

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

¹⁷ yet my hands are free of violence and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸ O earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry for help never be laid to rest.

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

²⁰ My friends are my scoffers as my eyes pour out tears to God.

²¹ Oh, that a man might plead with God as he pleads with his neighbor!

²² For when only a few years are past I will go the way of no return.