Job 16–18

16I have heard words like that before;

the comfort you give is only torment.

³Are you going to keep on talking for ever?

Do you always have to have the last word?

⁴If you were in my place and I in yours,

I could say everything you are saying.

I could shake my head wisely

and drown you with a flood of words.

⁵I could strengthen you with advice

and keep talking to comfort you.

⁶But nothing I say helps,

and being silent does not calm my pain.

⁷You have worn me out, God;

you have let my family be killed.

⁸You have seized me; you are my enemy.

I am skin and bones,

and people take that as proof of my guilt.^h

⁹In anger God tears me limb from limb;

he glares at me with hate.

¹⁰People sneer at me;

they crowd round me and slap my face.

¹¹God has handed me over to evil people.

¹²I was living in peace,

but God took me by the throat

and battered me and crushed me.

God uses me for target practice

¹³and shoots arrows at me from every side—

arrows that pierce and wound me;

and even then he shows no pity.

¹⁴He wounds me again and again;

he attacks like a soldier gone mad with hate.

¹⁵I mourn and wear clothes made of sackcloth,

and I sit here in the dust defeated.

¹⁶I have cried until my face is red,

and my eyes are swollen and circled with shadows,

¹⁷but I am not guilty of any violence,

and my prayer to God is sincere.

¹⁸O Earth, don’t hide the wrongs done to me!

Don’t let my call for justice be silenced!

^19*There is someone in heaven

to stand up for me and take my side.

²⁰My friends scorn me;

my eyes pour out tears to God.

²¹I want someone to plead with God for me,

as one pleads for a friend.

²²My years are passing now,

and I walk the road of no return.

17The end of my life is near. I can hardly breathe;

there is nothing left for me but the grave.

²I watch how bitterly everyone mocks me.

³I am being honest, God. Accept my word.

There is no one else to support what I say.

⁴You have closed their minds to reason;

don’t let them triumph over me now.

⁵In the old proverb someone betrays his friends for money,

and his children suffer for it.ⁱ

⁶And now people use this proverb against me;

they come and spit in my face.

⁷My grief has almost made me blind;

my arms and legs are as thin as shadows.

⁸Those who claim to be honest are shocked,

and they all condemn me as godless.

⁹Those who claim to be respectable

are more and more convinced they are right.

¹⁰But if all of them came and stood before me,

I would not find even one of them wise.

¹¹My days have passed; my plans have failed;

my hope is gone.

¹²But my friends say night is daylight;

they say that light is near,

but I know I remain in darkness.

¹³My only hope is the world of the dead,

where I will lie down to sleep in the dark.

¹⁴I will call the grave my father,

and the worms that eat me

I will call my mother and my sisters.

¹⁵Where is there any hope for me?

Who sees any?

¹⁶Hope will not go with me^j

when I go down to the world of the dead.

18Job, can’t people like you ever be quiet?

If you stopped to listen, we could talk to you.

³What makes you think we are as stupid as cattle?

⁴You are only hurting yourself with your anger.

Will the earth be deserted because you are angry?

Will God move mountains to satisfy you?

^5*The light of the wicked will still be put out;

its flame will never burn again.

^6*The lamp in their tents will be darkened.

⁷Their steps were firm, but now they stumble;

they fall—victims of their own advice.

⁸They walk into a net, and their feet are caught;

⁹a trap catches their heels and holds them.

¹⁰On the ground a snare is hidden;

a trap has been set in their path.

¹¹All round them terror is waiting;

it follows them at every step.

¹²They used to be rich, but now they go hungry;

disaster stands and waits at their side.

¹³A deadly disease spreads over their bodies

and causes their arms and legs to rot.

¹⁴They are torn from the tents where they lived secure,

and are dragged off to face King Death.

¹⁵Now anyone may live in their tents—^k

after sulphur is sprinkled to disinfect them!^l

¹⁶Their roots and branches are withered and dry.

¹⁷Their fame is ended at home and abroad;

no one remembers them any more.

¹⁸They will be

driven out of the land of the living, driven from light into darkness.

¹⁹They have no descendants, no survivors.

²⁰From east to west, all who hear of their fate

shudder and tremble with fear.

²¹That is the fate of wicked people,

the fate of those who care nothing for God.