Job 16

And Job answered and said, 2 “I have heard many such things; all of you {are} comforters of trouble. 3 {Is there} an end to words of wind? Or what compels you that you answer? \* 4 I also would speak like you if your souls were where my soul is. I would join words together against you and I would shake my head at you.

I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips would relieve {you}. \* 6 If I speak, my pain is not relieved, but {if} I refrain, what goes from me? 7 But now he has exhausted me; you have devastated my whole family, 8 and you have shriveled me— it has become a witness, and my leanness rises up against me, it testifies against my face. \* 9 In his nose, he has torn {me} and he has attacked me; he gnashes his teeth against me. My enemy sharpens his eyes against me. 10 They have gaped at me with their mouth; in reproach they have struck my cheek; they have gathered themselves together against me. \* 11 God delivers me to sinners, and into the hands of the wicked he throws me. 12 I was tranquil, but he has shattered me, and he has seized my neck and shaken me to pieces. And he has set me up as a target for him; \* 13 his archers have surrounded me. He pierces my kidneys and he does not spare; he pours my bile on the ground. 14 He breaches me, breach upon the face of breach; he runs against me like a warrior. \* 15 I have sewn sackcloth on my skin, and I have thrust my horn into the dust. 16 My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids {is} a dark shadow, 17 although violence {is} not in my hands and my prayer {is} pure. \* 18 Earth, do not conceal my blood, and may {there} not be a {hiding} place for my cry. 19 Even now, behold, my witness {is} in the heavens, and my advocate {is} in the heights. \* 20 My intercessors {are} my friends; my eye weeps to God. 21 And he will argue for a man with God, and a son of man for his neighbor. 22 For years of number will come, and I will go {on} a path, I will not return. \*