Job 16:1–22

¹And Job proceeded to answer and say:

²“I have heard many things like these.
All of ​YOU​ are troublesome comforters!

³Is there an end to windy words?
Or what galls you, that you answer?

⁴I myself also could well speak as ​YOU​ men do.
If only ​YOUR​ souls existed where my soul is,
Would I be brilliant in words against ​YOU,
And would I wag my head against ​YOU?

⁵I would strengthen ​YOU​ with the words of my mouth,
And the consolation of my own lips would hold back—.

⁶If I do speak, my own pain is not held back,
And if I do cease doing so, what goes away from me?

⁷Only now he has made me weary;
He has made all those assembling with me desolate.

⁸You also seize me. It has become a witness,
So that my leanness rises up against me. In my face it testifies.

⁹His very anger has torn [me] to pieces, and he harbors animosity against me.
He actually grinds his teeth against me.
My adversary himself sharpens his eyes against me.

¹⁰They have opened their mouth wide against me,
With reproach they have struck my cheeks,
In large number they mass themselves against me.

¹¹God hands me over to young boys,
And into the hands of wicked ones he throws me headlong.

¹²I had come to be at ease, but he proceeded to shake me up;
And he grabbed me by the back of the neck and proceeded to smash me,
And he sets me up as a target for himself.

¹³His archers encircle me;
He splits open my kidneys and feels no compassion;
He pours out my gallbladder to the very earth.

¹⁴He keeps breaking through me with breach after breach;
He runs at me like a mighty one.

¹⁵Sackcloth I have sewed together over my skin,
And I have thrust my horn in the very dust.

¹⁶My face itself has become reddened from weeping,
And upon my eyelids there is deep shadow,
¹⁷Although there is no violence upon my palms,
And my prayer is pure.

¹⁸O earth, do not cover my blood!
And let there prove to be no place for my outcry!

¹⁹Also now, look! in the heavens is one testifying about me,
And my witness is in the heights.

²⁰My companions are spokesmen against me;
To God my eye has looked sleeplessly.

²¹And the decision is to be made between an able‐bodied man and God,
The same as between a son of man and his fellow.

²²For just a few years are to come,
And by the path by which I shall not return I shall go away.