Job 16–17

Job Reproaches His Pitiless Friends

16Then Job answered and said:

²“I have heard many such things;

^aMiserable ¹comforters are you all!

³Shall ²words of wind have an end?

Or what provokes you that you answer?

⁴I also could speak as you do,

If your soul were in my soul’s place.

I could heap up words against you,

And ^bshake my head at you;

⁵But I would strengthen you with my mouth,

And the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief.

⁶“Though I speak, my grief is not relieved;

And if I remain silent, how am I eased?

⁷But now He has ^cworn me out;

You ^dhave made desolate all my company.

⁸You have shriveled me up,

And it is a ^ewitness against me;

My leanness rises up against me

And bears witness to my face.

^9fHe tears me in His wrath, and hates me;

He gnashes at me with His teeth;

^gMy adversary sharpens His gaze on me.

¹⁰They ^hgape at me with their mouth,

They ⁱstrike me reproachfully on the cheek,

They gather together against me.

¹¹God ^jhas delivered me to the ungodly,

And turned me over to the hands of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, but He has ^kshattered me;

He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces;

He has ^lset me up for His target,

¹³His archers surround me.

He pierces my ³heart and does not pity;

He pours out my gall on the ground.

¹⁴He breaks me with wound upon wound;

He runs at me like a ⁴warrior.

¹⁵“I have sewn sackcloth over my skin,

And ^mlaid my ⁵head in the dust.

¹⁶My face is ⁶flushed from weeping,

And on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

¹⁷Although no violence is in my hands,

And my prayer is pure.

¹⁸“O earth, do not cover my blood,

And ⁿlet my cry have no resting place!

¹⁹Surely even now ^omy witness is in heaven,

And my evidence is on high.

²⁰My friends scorn me;

My eyes pour out tears to God.

^21pOh, that one might plead for a man with God,

As a man pleads for his ⁷neighbor!

²²For when a few years are finished,

I shall ^qgo the way of no return.

Job Prays for Relief

17“My spirit is broken, My days are extinguished,

^aThe grave is ready for me.

²Are not mockers with me?

And does not my eye ¹dwell on their ^bprovocation?

³“Now put down a pledge for me with Yourself.

Who is he who ^cwill shake hands with me?

⁴For You have hidden their heart from ^dunderstanding;

Therefore You will not exalt them.

⁵He who speaks flattery to his friends,

Even the eyes of his children will ^efail.

⁶“But He has made me ^fa byword of the people,

And I have become one in whose face men spit.

^7gMy eye has also grown dim because of sorrow,

And all my members are like shadows.

⁸Upright men are astonished at this,

And the innocent stirs himself up against the hypocrite.

⁹Yet the righteous will hold to his ^hway,

And he who has ⁱclean hands will be stronger and stronger.

¹⁰“But please, ^jcome back again, ²all of you,

For I shall not find one wise man among you.

^11kMy days are past,

My purposes are broken off,

Even the ³thoughts of my heart.

¹²They change the night into day;

‘The light is near,’ they say, in the face of darkness.

¹³If I wait for the grave as my house,

If I make my bed in the darkness,

¹⁴If I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’

And to the worm, ‘You are my mother and my sister,’

¹⁵Where then is my ^lhope?

As for my hope, who can see it?

¹⁶Will they go down ^mto the gates of ⁴Sheol?

Shall we have ⁿrest together in the dust?”