Job 16

¹Then Job, answering, said

²I have often heard such things; you are all aggravating comforters

³Will there be no end to windy words? Or is it at all a burden to you, if you speak

⁴I, too, can speak like you; and I also wish that your soul favored my soul

⁵I would also comfort you with speeches and would wag my head over you

⁶I would strengthen you with my mouth, and would move my lips, as if being lenient to you

⁷But what can I do? When I am speaking, my grief will not be quiet; and if I am quiet, it will not withdraw from me

⁸But now my grief has crushed me, and all my limbs have been reduced to nothing

⁹My wrinkles bear witness against me, and a liar rises up against my face, contradicting me

¹⁰He has gathered together his fury towards me, and, threatening me, he has roared against me with his teeth; my enemy has beheld me with terrible eyes

¹¹They have opened their mouths against me, and, reproaching me, they have struck me on the cheek; they are nourished by my sufferings

¹²God has confined me with the immoral, and he has delivered me into the hands of the impious

¹³I, who once was wealthy, am now crushed. He has grabbed me by my neck; he has broken me and has placed me before him as a sign

¹⁴He has surrounded me with his lances. He has severely wounded my lower back, he has not been lenient, and he has poured out my organs upon the earth

¹⁵He has cut me with wound after wound. He has rushed upon me like a giant

¹⁶I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and I have covered my body with ashes

¹⁷My face is swollen from weeping, and my eyelids have dimmed my vision

¹⁸These things I have endured without iniquity in my hand, while I held pure prayers before God

¹⁹O earth, do not conceal my blood, nor let my outcry find a hiding place in you

²⁰For behold, my witness is in heaven, and my confidante is on high

²¹My friends are full of words; my eye rains tears upon God

²²And I wish that a man might be so judged before God, just as the son of man is judged with his assistant

²³For behold, a few years pass by, and I am walking a path by which I will not return