Job 16

Then Job replied to Eliphaz and the others. He said, 2 “I have heard many things like that before. All of you, instead of helping me, are only causing me to feel more miserable. 3 I wish that you would stop saying these things that are not helping me. Eliphaz, I do not understand why you feel that you must keep replying to me. \* 4 I could say the same things that you are saying if you were the ones suffering instead of me. I could make great speeches to criticize you, and I could shake my head at you {to ridicule you}. 5 I would think that I was encouraging you by what I said. Yes, I would think that I was relieving you by speaking with you \* 6 But as it is, if I talk, I continue to suffer just as much, and if I do not talk, that does not reduce my suffering either. 7 But now {I will speak to God}. God, you have taken away all my strength, and you have killed all of my children. 8 You have made me sick, and I have lost a lot of weight, and people think that shows that I am a sinner. They see how thin I am, and they think that proves that I am guilty. \* 9 God is so angry with me that he has attacked me and hurt me. Now he is moving his teeth back and forth because he is still so angry with me. He is watching me closely {to see how he can attack me again}.

People look at me with their mouths wide open in order to humiliate me. They hit me in the face because they think I have done wrong. They crowd around me to threaten me. \* 11 God has allowed people who do not honor him to mistreat me. He has allowed wicked people to do whatever they want to me. 12 Previously, I was living peacefully, but then God caused great trouble for me. It is as if he grabbed my neck and shook me to pieces. It is as if he set me up as a target \* 13 and people were surrounding me and shooting arrows at me. It is as if those arrows cut open my kidneys and caused the gall from my liver to spill onto the ground. God is not having any mercy on me at all! 14 It is as if I were a wall that God was breaking down in many places. It is as if God were rushing at me like a soldier who was attacking his enemy. \* 15 {I am grieving so deeply that} it is as if I have sewn rough mourning cloth right onto my skin! I feel weak and humiliated. 16 My face is red because I have cried so much. I have dark circles around my eyes because I have not been sleeping well. 17 All this has happened to me even though I have not violently harmed anyone and even though I pray sincerely to God. \* 18 I feel as if I am the victim of a violent crime, and I want people to show concern about what has happened to me. I do not want anyone to stop me while I am demanding that God act justly toward me. 19 But even now, I know that there is someone in heaven who will testify for me. He will confirm that what I have done is right. \* 20 This person in heaven is my friend, and he will plead with God for me. {At the same time, I will also plead with God so earnestly} that I will weep. 21 My friend will plead with God for me in heaven the same way one person pleads for another person here on earth. 22 {I want God to treat me justly now, while there is still time,} because within a few years I will die. \*