Job 16:1–17:16
Job Replies: Miserable Comforters Are You
16 Then Job answered and said:
2 “I have heard emany such things;
fmiserable comforters are you all.
3 Shall gwindy words have an end?
Or what provokes you that you answer?
4 I also could speak as you do,
if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you
and hshake my head at you.
5 I could strengthen you with my mouth,
and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.
6 “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
7 Surely now God has worn me out;
ihe has1 made desolate all my company.
which is ja witness against me,
and my kleanness has risen up against me;
it testifies to my face.
9 He has ltorn me in his wrath mand hated me;
he has ngnashed his teeth at me;
my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
10 Men have ogaped at me with their mouth;
they have pstruck me insolently on the cheek;
they qmass themselves together against me.
11 God gives me up to the ungodly
and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
12 I was at ease, and he broke me apart;
he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his rtarget;
13 his sarchers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys tand does not spare;
he upours out my gall on the ground.
14 He breaks me with vbreach upon breach;
he wruns upon me like a warrior.
15 I have sewed xsackcloth upon my skin
and have laid ymy strength zin the dust.
16 My face is red with weeping,
and on my eyelids is adeep darkness,
17 although there is no bviolence in my hands,
and my prayer is pure.
18 “O earth, ccover not my blood,
and let my dcry find no resting place.
19 Even now, behold, my ewitness is in heaven,
and he who testifies for me is fon high.
20 My friends gscorn me;
my eye pours out tears to God,
21 that he would hargue the case of a man with God,
as2 a son of man does with his neighbor.
22 For when a few years have come
I shall go the way ifrom which I shall not return.
Job Continues: Where Then Is My Hope?
17 “My spirit is broken; my days are jextinct;
kthe graveyard is ready for me.
2 Surely there are mockers about me,
and my eye dwells on their lprovocation.
3 “Lay down a pledge for me with you;
who is there who will put up msecurity for me?
4 Since you have closed their hearts to understanding,
therefore you will not let them triumph.
5 He who informs against his friends to get a share of their property—
the neyes of his children will fail.
6 “He has made me oa byword of the peoples,
and I am one before whom men spit.
7 My peye has grown dim from vexation,
and all my members are like qa shadow.
8 The upright are rappalled at this,
and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless.
9 Yet the righteous holds to his way,
and he who has sclean hands grows stronger and stronger.
10 But you, tcome on again, all of you,
and I shall not find a wise man among you.
11 My udays are past; my plans are broken off,
the desires of my heart.
12 They vmake night into day:
‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’1
13 If I hope for wSheol as xmy house,
if I make my bed in darkness,
14 if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’
and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
Who will see my hope?
16 Will it go down to the bars of wSheol?