Job 16
1 Job replied:
2 “I have heard many things like this; all of you are miserable comforters.
3 Will words of wind never end? What makes you answer like this?
4 I too could speak as you do, if you were in my place; I could string words together against you and shake my head at you.
5 But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the movement of my lips would bring relief.
6 If I speak, my pain does not lessen; if I stop, what goes away from me?
7 But now he has worn me out; you have devastated all my company.
8 You have shriveled me up, and that has become a witness; my gauntness rises against me and testifies to my face.
9 His anger tears me apart and bears a grudge against me; he grinds his teeth at me, while my adversary fixes a sharp gaze on me.
10 They gape at me; they strike my cheek in contempt; together they gather against me.
11 God hands me over to the unjust and throws me into the hands of the wicked.”
12 “I was at ease, but he shook me; he seized me by the neck and shattered me; he made me his target.
13 His archers surround me; he pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my bile on the ground.
14 He breaches me again and again; he rushes at me like a warrior.
15 I have sewn sackcloth over my skin and buried my strength in the dust.
16 My face is inflamed from weeping, and the shadow of death lies over my eyelids.
17 Yet there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
18 Earth, do not cover my blood, and let there be no place where my cry is silenced!
19 Even now, my witness is in heaven; the one who speaks for me is on high.
20 My friends mock me; my eye pours out tears to God.
21 May he plead for a man before God, and for a human being before his neighbor.
22 For in a few short years I will go on a path from which I will not return.”
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