JOB 16
Job Replies: Miserable Comforters Are You
[1] Then Job answered and said:
[2] “I have heard many such things;
miserable comforters are you all.
[3] Shall windy words have an end?
Or what provokes you that you answer?
[4] I also could speak as you do,
if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you
and shake my head at you.
[5] I could strengthen you with my mouth,
and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.
[6] “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
[7] Surely now God has worn me out;
he has made desolate all my company.
[8] And he has shriveled me up,
which is a witness against me,
and my leanness has risen up against me;
it testifies to my face.
[9] He has torn me in his wrath and hated me;
he has gnashed his teeth at me;
my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
[10] Men have gaped at me with their mouth;
they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
they mass themselves together against me.
[11] God gives me up to the ungodly
and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
[12] I was at ease, and he broke me apart;
he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his target;
[13] his archers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare;
he pours out my gall on the ground.
[14] He breaks me with breach upon breach;
he runs upon me like a warrior.
[15] I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin
and have laid my strength in the dust.
[16] My face is red with weeping,
and on my eyelids is deep darkness,
[17] although there is no violence in my hands,
and my prayer is pure.
[18] “O earth, cover not my blood,
and let my cry find no resting place.
[19] Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,
and he who testifies for me is on high.
[20] My friends scorn me;
my eye pours out tears to God,
[21] that he would argue the case of a man with God,
as a son of man does with his neighbor.
[22] For when a few years have come
I shall go the way from which I shall not return. (ESV)
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