Job 6:1-30 - Job's Second Speech: A Response To Eliphaz

¹ And Job answered and said, ² Oh that my grief were but weighed, and my ruin laid in the balances together! ³ For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea; therefore my words have been rash. ⁴ For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, their fury is drinking my spirit; the terrors of God are set against me. ⁵ Does the wild ass bray when he has grass? Or does the ox low over his fodder? ⁶ Can that which has no taste be eaten without salt? Or is there taste in the white of an egg? ⁷ My soul refuses to touch them; they are sickening food to me.

⁸ Oh that I might have my desire, and that God would grant the thing that I long for! ⁹ Even that it would please God to destroy me; that He would loose His hand and cut me off! ¹⁰ And it is yet my comfort; yea, I would rejoice in pain, though He did not spare me; for I have not hidden the words of the Holy One.

¹¹ What is my strength, that I should hope? And what is my end, that I should be patient? ¹² Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh bronze? ¹³ Is not my help in me? And is wisdom fully driven away from me?

¹⁴ To him who is afflicted, pity is due from his friend, but he forsakes the fear of the Almighty. ¹⁵ My brothers have dealt deceitfully as a torrent; they pass away as the streams of torrents, ¹⁶ torrents black from ice, in which the snow hides itself. ¹⁷ When they become warm, they go away; when it is hot, they vanish out of their place. ¹⁸ The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing and are lost. ¹⁹ The troops of Tema looked; the companies of Sheba hoped for them. ²⁰ They were ashamed because they had hoped; they came there and were ashamed. ²¹ Surely now you are like them; you see my casting down, and are afraid. ²² Did I say, Give to me? or, Offer a bribe for me from your wealth; ²³ or, Deliver me from the enemy's hand; or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty?

²⁴ Teach me, and I will be silent; and cause me to understand where I have gone astray. ²⁵ Right words are powerful, but what does your arguing argue? ²⁶ Do you intend to criticize words, and the speeches of one who is hopeless, that are as wind? ²⁷ Yea, you cause anger to fall on the fatherless, and you dig a pit for your friend.

²⁸ And now, please look on me; for if I lie, it is before your face. ²⁹ Turn back, please let there be no sin; yea, return again, my righteousness is in this matter. ³⁰ Is there wrong in my tongue? Cannot my taste discern desirable things?

¹ Is there not a warfare to man on earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hireling? ² As a servant earnestly desires the shadow, and as a hireling looks for his wages, ³ so I am made to possess months of vanity, and weary nights are appointed to me. ⁴ When I lie down, I say, When shall I rise? But the night is long, and I am full of tossing to and fro until the dawning of the day. ⁵ My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken and has run afresh.

⁶ My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are ended without hope. ⁷ Remember that my life is a breath; my eye shall no more see good. ⁸ The eye of him who has seen me shall see me no more; Your eyes are on me, and I am gone. ⁹ As the cloud falls and vanishes away, so he who goes down to the grave shall come up no more. ¹⁰ He shall return no more to his house, nor shall his place know him any more.

¹¹ Therefore I will not hold my mouth; I will speak in the trouble of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. ¹² Am I like the sea, or a whale, that You set a watch over me? ¹³ When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint, ¹⁴ then You scare me with dreams, and terrify me with visions; ¹⁵ so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my life. ¹⁶ I despise them; I will not live always; let me alone, for my days are vanity.

¹⁷ What is man, that You should magnify him, and that You should set Your heart on him, ¹⁸ and visit him every morning, trying him every moment? ¹⁹ Until when will You look away from me, nor let me alone until I swallow down my spittle? ²⁰ I have sinned. What shall I do to You, O Watcher of men? Why have You set me as a target for You, so that I am a burden to myself? ²¹ And why do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? For now I shall sleep in the dust, and You shall seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.