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.

8  And he has shriveled me up,

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,’

15  where then is my hope?

Who will see my hope?

16  Will it go down to the bars of wSheol?

Shall we ydescend together zinto the dust?”2

Bildad Speaks: God Punishes the Wicked

18 Then aBildad the Shuhite answered and said:

2  “How long will you bhunt for words?

Consider, and then we will speak.

3  Why are we counted as ccattle?

Why are we stupid in your sight?

4  You who dtear yourself in your anger,

shall the earth be forsaken for you,

or ethe rock be removed out of its place?

5  “Indeed, fthe light of the wicked is put out,

and the flame of his fire does not shine.

6  The light is gdark in his tent,

and his lamp above him is put out.

7  His strong steps are shortened,

and his hown schemes throw him down.

8  For he is cast into a net by his own feet,

and he walks on its mesh.

9  iA trap seizes him by the heel;

a snare lays hold of him.

10  A rope is hidden for him in the ground,

a trap for him in the path.

11  jTerrors frighten him on every side,

and chase him at his heels.

12  His strength is famished,

and calamity is kready for his stumbling.

13  It consumes the parts of his skin;

lthe firstborn of death consumes his limbs.

14  He is torn from the tent in which he trusted

and is brought to mthe king of terrors.

15  In his tent dwells that which is none of his;

nsulfur is scattered over his habitation.

16  His oroots dry up beneath,

and his branches pwither above.

17  His qmemory perishes from the earth,

and he has no name in the street.

18  rHe is thrust from light into darkness,

and driven out of the world.

19  He has no sposterity or progeny among his people,

and no survivor where he used to live.

20  They of the west are appalled at his tday,

and uhorror seizes them of the east.

21  Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous,

such is the place of him who vknows not God.”