Job 16:1-22 - Job's Fifth Speech

¹ Then Job answered: ² I have heard many things like these.
You are all miserable comforters.
³ Is there no end to your empty words?
What provokes you that you continue testifying?
⁴ If you were in my place I could also talk like you.
I could string words together against you
and shake my head at you.
⁵ Instead, I would encourage you with my mouth,
and the consolation from my lips would bring relief.

⁶ Even if I speak, my suffering is not relieved,
and if I hold back, what have I lost?
⁷ Surely He has now exhausted me.
You have devastated my entire family.
⁸ You have shriveled me up—it has become a witness;
My frailty rises up against me and testifies to my face.
⁹ His anger tears at me, and He harasses me.
He gnashes His teeth at me.
My enemy pierces me with His eyes.
¹⁰ They open their mouths against me
and strike my cheeks with contempt;
they join themselves together against me.
¹¹ God hands me over to unjust men;
He throws me into the hands of the wicked.
¹² I was at ease, but He shattered me;
He seized me by the scruff of the neck
and smashed me to pieces.
He set me up as His target;
¹³ His archers surround me.
He pierces my kidneys without mercy
and pours my bile on the ground.
¹⁴ He breaks through my defenses again and again;
He charges at me like a warrior.

¹⁵ I have sewn sackcloth over my skin;
I have buried my strength in the dust.
¹⁶ My face has grown red with weeping,
and darkness covers my eyes,
¹⁷ although my hands are free from violence
and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸ Earth, do not cover my blood;
may my cry for help find no resting place.
¹⁹ Even now my witness is in heaven,
and my advocate is in the heights!
²⁰ My friends scoff at me
as I weep before God.
²¹ I wish that someone might arbitrate
between a man and God
just as a man pleads for his friend.
²² For only a few years will pass
before I go the way of no return.

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