Chapter 16

Job Says Friends Are Sorry Comforters

1 Then Job 1answered,

2 “I have heard many such things;

1aSorry comforters are you all.

3 “Is there no limit to awindy words?

Or what plagues you that you answer?

4 “I too could speak like you,

If 1I were in your place.

I could compose words against you

And ashake my head at you.

5 “I could strengthen you with my mouth,

And the solace of my lips could lessen your pain.

Job Says God Shattered Him

6 “If I speak, amy pain is not lessened,

And if I hold back, what has left me?

7 “But now He has aexhausted me;

You have laid bwaste all my company.

8 “You have shriveled me up,

aIt has become a witness;

And my bleanness rises up against me,

It testifies to my face.

9 “His anger has atorn me and 1hunted me down,

He has bgnashed at me with His teeth;

My cadversary 2glares at me.

10 “They have agaped at me with their mouth,

They have 1bslapped me on the cheek with contempt;

They have cmassed themselves against me.

11 “God hands me over to ruffians

And tosses me into the hands of the wicked.

12 “I was at ease, but aHe shattered me,

And He has grasped me by the neck and shaken me to pieces;

He has also set me up as His btarget.

13 “His aarrows surround me.

Without mercy He splits my kidneys open;

He pours out bmy gall on the ground.

14 “He abreaks through me with breach after breach;

He bruns at me like a warrior.

15 “I have sewed asackcloth over my skin

And bthrust my horn in the dust.

16 “My face is flushed from aweeping,

bAnd deep darkness is on my eyelids,

17 Although there is no aviolence in my hands,

And bmy prayer is pure.

18 “O earth, do not cover my blood,

And let there be no resting place for my cry.

19 “Even now, behold, amy witness is in heaven,

And my 1advocate is bon high.

20 “My friends are my scoffers;

aMy eye 1weeps to God.

21 “O that a man might plead with God

As a man with his neighbor!

22 “For when a few years are past,

I shall go the way aof no return.