Job 16

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.