16 Then Job answered and said,

2  I have heard many asuch things:

||bMiserable comforters are ye all.

3  Shall †vain words have an end?

Or what cemboldeneth thee that thou answerest?

4  I also could speak as ye do:

If your soul were in my soul’s stead,

I could heap up words against you,

And dshake mine head at you.

5  But I would strengthen you with my mouth,

And the moving of my lips should asswage eyour grief.

6  Though I speak, my grief is not asswaged:

And though I forbear, †what am I eased?

7  But now he hath made me weary:

Thou hast made desolate all fmy company.

8  And thou hast gfilled me with wrinkles, which is a hwitness against me:

And my gileanness rising up in me

Beareth witness to my face.

9  kHe teareth me in his wrath, who lhateth me:

He mgnasheth upon me with his teeth;

Mine enemy nsharpeneth his eyes upon me.

10  They have ogaped upon me with their mouth;

They phave smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully;

They have gathered themselves together against me.

11  God †hath delivered me to the qungodly,

And rturned me over into the hands of the wicked.

12  I was at ease, but he hath sbroken me asunder:

He hath also taken me by my neck, and tshaken me to pieces,

And set me up for his umark.

13  His warchers compass me round about,

He cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare;

He xpoureth out my gall upon the ground.

14  He breaketh me with ybreach upon breach,

He runneth upon me like a giant.

15  I have sewed zsackcloth upon my gskin,

And adefiled my horn in the dust.

16  My face bis foul with weeping,

And on my eyelids is cthe shadow of death;

17  dNot for any injustice in mine hands:

Also my prayer is pure.

18  O earth, ecover not thou my blood,

And let fmy cry have no place.

19  Also now, behold, gmy witness is in heaven,

And my record is †on high.

20  My friends †scorn me:

But mine eye poureth out tears unto God.

21  O that one might hplead for a man with God,

As a man pleadeth for his ||neighbour!

22  When †a few years are come,

Then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.