JOB 16 [†]Then Job answered and said:

2 “I have heard  e many such things;

 f miserable comforters are you all.

3 Shall  g 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  h 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;

 i he has [1] made desolate all my company.

8[†] And he has shriveled me up,

which is  j a witness against me,

and my  k leanness has risen up against me;

it testifies to my face.

9 He has  l torn me in his wrath  m and hated me;

he has  n gnashed his teeth at me;

my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.

10 Men have  o gaped at me with their mouth;

they have  p struck me insolently on the cheek;

they  q 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  r target;

13 his  s archers surround me.

He slashes open my kidneys  t and does not spare;

he  u pours out my gall on the ground.

14 He breaks me with  v breach upon breach;

he  w runs upon me like a warrior.

15[†] I have sewed  x sackcloth upon my skin

and have laid  y my strength  z in the dust.

16[†] My face is red with weeping,

and on my eyelids is  a deep darkness,

17[^] although there is no  b violence in my hands,

and my prayer is pure.

18 “O earth,  c cover not my blood,

and let my  d cry find no resting place.

19[^][†] Even now, behold, my  e witness is in heaven,

and he who testifies for me is  f on high.

20 My friends  g scorn me;

my eye pours out tears to God,

21[^] that he would  h argue the case of a man with God,

as [2] a son of man does with his neighbor.

22 For when a few years have come

I shall go the way  i from which I shall not return.