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