Job 16

JOB’S REPLY TO ELIPHAZ

16Then Job answered:

²I have heard many things like these.

You are all miserable comforters.^q

³Is there no end to your empty^r words?

What provokes you that you continue testifying?

⁴If you were in my place I could also talk like you.

I could string words together against you

and shake my head at you.

⁵Instead, I would encourage you with my mouth,

and the consolation from my lips would bring relief.^s

⁶If I speak, my suffering is not relieved,

and if I hold back, does any of it leave me?

⁷Surely he^C has now exhausted me.

You have devastated my entire family.

⁸You have shriveled me up^D—it has become a witness;

my frailty rises up against me and testifies to my face.

⁹His anger tears at me, and he harasses^a me.

He gnashes his teeth at me.

My enemy pierces me with his eyes.

¹⁰They open their mouths against me

and strike my cheeks with contempt;^b

they join themselves together against me.

¹¹God hands me over to the unjust;^E

he throws me to the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, but he shattered me;

he seized me by the scruff of the neck

and smashed me to pieces.

He set me up as his target;^c

¹³his archers^A surround me.

He pierces my kidneys without mercy

and pours my bile on the ground.

¹⁴He breaks through my defenses again and again;^B

he charges at me like a warrior.^d

¹⁵I have sewn sackcloth over my skin;

I have buried my strength^C in the dust.^e

¹⁶My face has grown red with weeping,

and darkness^f covers my eyes,

¹⁷although my hands are free from violence^g

and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸Earth, do not cover my blood;

may my cry for help find no resting place.^h

¹⁹Even now my witness is in heaven,

and my advocate is in the heights!ⁱ

²⁰My friends scoff at me

as I weep before God.

²¹I wish that someone might argue for a man with God^j

just as anyone^D would for a friend.

²²For only a few years will pass

before I go the way of no return.