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.