Job 16–17

Chapter 16

Job’s Fifth Speech: A Response to Eliphaz

Then Job spoke again:

²“I have heard all this before.

What miserable comforters you are!

³Won’t you ever stop blowing hot air?

What makes you keep on talking?

⁴I could say the same things if you were in my place.

I could spout off criticism and shake my head at you.

⁵But if it were me, I would encourage you.

I would try to take away your grief.

⁶Instead, I suffer if I defend myself,

and I suffer no less if I refuse to speak.

⁷“O God, you have ground me down

and devastated my family.

⁸As if to prove I have sinned, you’ve reduced me to skin and bones.

My gaunt flesh testifies against me.

⁹God hates me and angrily tears me apart.

He snaps his teeth at me

and pierces me with his eyes.

¹⁰People jeer and laugh at me.

They slap my cheek in contempt.

A mob gathers against me.

¹¹God has handed me over to sinners.

He has tossed me into the hands of the wicked.

¹²“I was living quietly until he shattered me.

He took me by the neck and broke me in pieces.

Then he set me up as his target,

¹³and now his archers surround me.

His arrows pierce me without mercy.

The ground is wet with my blood.

¹⁴Again and again he smashes against me,

charging at me like a warrior.

¹⁵I wear burlap to show my grief.

My pride lies in the dust.

¹⁶My eyes are red with weeping;

dark shadows circle my eyes.

¹⁷Yet I have done no wrong,

and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸“O earth, do not conceal my blood.

Let it cry out on my behalf.

¹⁹Even now my witness is in heaven.

My advocate is there on high.

²⁰My friends scorn me,

but I pour out my tears to God.

²¹I need someone to mediate between God and me,

as a person mediates between friends.

²²For soon I must go down that road

from which I will never return.

Chapter 17

Job Continues to Defend His Innocence

¹“My spirit is crushed,

and my life is nearly snuffed out.

The grave is ready to receive me.

²I am surrounded by mockers.

I watch how bitterly they taunt me.

³“You must defend my innocence, O God,

since no one else will stand up for me.

⁴You have closed their minds to understanding,

but do not let them triumph.

⁵They betray their friends for their own advantage,

so let their children faint with hunger.

⁶“God has made a mockery of me among the people;

they spit in my face.

⁷My eyes are swollen with weeping,

and I am but a shadow of my former self.

⁸The virtuous are horrified when they see me.

The innocent rise up against the ungodly.

⁹The righteous keep moving forward,

and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger.

¹⁰“As for all of you, come back with a better argument,

though I still won’t find a wise man among you.

¹¹My days are over.

My hopes have disappeared.

My heart’s desires are broken.

¹²These men say that night is day;

they claim that the darkness is light.

¹³What if I go to the grave

and make my bed in darkness?

¹⁴What if I call the grave my father,

and the maggot my mother or my sister?

¹⁵Where then is my hope?

Can anyone find it?

¹⁶No, my hope will go down with me to the grave.

We will rest together in the dust!”