Chapter 16

Then Job answered:
I have heard many things like these. You are all miserable comforters.
Is there no end to your empty words? What provokes you that you continue testifying?
If you were in my place I could also talk like you.

I could string words together against you and shake my head at you.

Instead, I would encourage you with my mouth, and the consolation from my lips would bring relief.
If I speak, my suffering is not relieved, and if I hold back, does any of it leave me?
Surely he has now exhausted me. You have devastated my entire family.
You have shriveled me up--it has become a witness; my frailty rises up against me and testifies to my face.
His anger tears at me, and he harasses me. He gnashes his teeth at me. My enemy pierces me with his eyes.
They open their mouths against me and strike my cheeks with contempt; they join themselves together against me.
God hands me over to the unjust; he throws me to the wicked.
I was at ease, but he shattered me; he seized me by the scruff of the neck and smashed me to pieces. He set me up as his target;
his archers surround me.

He pierces my kidneys without mercy and pours my bile on the ground.

He breaks through my defenses again and again; he charges at me like a warrior.
I have sewn sackcloth over my skin; I have buried my strength in the dust.
My face has grown red with weeping, and darkness covers my eyes,
although my hands are free from violence and my prayer is pure.
Earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry for help find no resting place.
Even now my witness is in heaven, and my advocate is in the heights!
My friends scoff at me as I weep before God.
I wish that someone might argue for a man with God just as anyone would for a friend.
For only a few years will pass before I go the way of no return.