Tasteless food isn't eaten without salt, is it? Is there any taste in an egg white?

"Who will grant my wish? I wish God would grant what I'm hoping for:

At least I could still take comfort and rejoice in unceasing anguish, for I didn't conceal what the Holy One has to say.

"Do I have the strength to wait? And why should I be patient?

The truth can be painful, but what has your argument proven?

Repent! Let there be no injustice; Change your ways! My vindication is at stake.

My skin is covered with worms and clods of dirt; my skin becomes rough and then breaks out afresh.

"What is a human being, that you make so much of him; that you set your affections on him,

So what if I sin? What have I done against you, you observer of humankind? Why have you made me your target? Why burden yourself with me?

Does God pervert justice? Does the Almighty pervert what's right?

"Inquire of the previous generation, won't you please? Consider what their forefathers searched out.

Won't they instruct you, and tell you, and bring out words from the heart?

While they are still green and not yet ready to be harvested, they wither before any plant.

He leans against his house, but it won't stand; he grabs hold of it firmly, but it doesn't last.

He is a fresh sapling planted in the sunlight, spreading out its branches over its garden.

If he is uprooted from his place, then it will deny him: "I never saw you.'

He commands the sun so that it doesn't shine and seals up the stars.

He alone spreads out the heavens, he walks on the waves of the sea.

Indeed, if he snatches someone away, who could restrain him? Who can say to him, "What are you doing?'

So how am I to answer him, choosing what I am to say to him?

"Were I to be summoned, and he were to answer me, I wouldn't even believe that he was listening to what I have to say.

I say it's all the same he destroys both the blameless and the guilty.

If a calamity causes sudden death, he'll mock at the despair of the innocent.

A land is given into the hands of a wicked person; he covers the faces of its judges. If it is not God, then who is it?"

I will be condemned, so why should I wear myself out with this futility?

There is not yet a mediator between us, who would set his hand on the two of us,

"I am disgusted with living, so I'm going to talk about my complaint freely. I'll speak out from the bitterness of my soul.

Does it delight you to oppress or despise what you have made, while you smile at the plans of the wicked?

Do you have eyes made of flesh? Can you look at things as humans do?

""For you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin.

Your hands formed and fashioned me, but then you have destroyed me all at once on all sides.

Didn't you pour me out like milk and let me congeal like cheese?

""Woe to me if I'm guilty! If I'm innocent, I cannot lift my head, because I am filled with disgrace. Look at my affliction!

So why did you bring me out from the womb? I wish I had died, before anyone had seen me,

It's a gloomy land, like deepest darkness; where there's no order, and where even the brightness is like darkness.'"

"But what if God were to speak? What if he were to talk with you,

These things are higher than the heavens, so what can you do? They are deeper than Sheol, so what can you know?

For he knows mankind's deceitfulness; when he sees iniquity, won't he himself consider it?

"Now for you, if you will prepare your heart, spread out your hands to him.

If you have any iniquity, throw it far away. Don't let evil live in your residence.

You'll forget your suffering; you'll remember it like water that has evaporated.

You'll be secure, because there is hope; you'll see that you're at rest and safe.

But what the wicked look for will fail; their way of escape will be taken away from them; their only hope is to take their final breath."

The carefree are thinking, "I have contempt for misfortune,' Those who are about to stumble deserve it.

The tents of robbers are at rest, and those who provoke God are secure, that is, those who carry their god in their pocket.

He uncovers the hidden dimensions from darkness, bringing what is in deep shadow to light.

What you know, I know, too; I'm not inferior to you.

I wish you'd all just shut up. Then at least you would appear to be wise.

His splendor will petrify you with terror, paralyzing you with fear, won't it?

"Don't talk to me! It's my turn to speak; then whatever happens, happens.

Even though he kills me, I'll continue to hope in him. At least I'll be able to argue my case to his face!

Pay attention to what I have to say and listen to my testimony with your own ears."

So I'm a man who wears out like something rotten, like a garment that has become moth-eaten."

Since his days have been determined, the number of his months is known to you. You've set his limit and he cannot exceed it.

"There is hope for the tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots won't stop growing.

the presence of water will make it to bud so that it sprouts new branches like a young plant.

"If his children are honored, he doesn't know it; if they become insignificant, he never perceives it.

Yet you dispense with fear of God and hinder meditations before God.

What do you know that we don't know, or that you understand and that isn't clear to us?

"What is mankind, that he can be blameless? Or does being born of a woman mean he'll be in the right?

Look, if God doesn't trust his holy ones, if even the heavens aren't pure as he looks at them,

"I'll tell you what, listen to me! Let me relate what I've seen,

which is what wise men have explained, who didn't withhold anything from their ancestors.

He wanders around for food where is it? He knows that a time of darkness is near.

Though he covered his face with fat, and is grossly overweight at the waist,

"I've heard many things like this. What miserable comforters you all are!

Will windy words like yours never end? What is upsetting you that you keep on arguing?

"I could also talk like you if only you were in my place! Then I would put together an argument against you. I would shake my head at you

and encourage you with what I have to say; my words of comfort would lessen your pain.

"But if I speak, my pain isn't assuaged; if I refrain from speaking, what do I have to lose?"

"God has certainly worn me out; you devastated my entire world.

His anger tears me in his persistent resentment against me; he gnashes his teeth at me. My adversary glares at me.

People gaped at me with mouths wide open; they slap me in their scorn and gather together against me.

"He tore me apart when I was at ease; grabbing me by my neck, he shook me to pieces then he really made me his target.

His archers surround me, slashing open my kidneys without pity; he pours out my gall on the ground.

"My spirit is crushed, my days are over; it's the grave for me!

Mockers surround me; I cannot stop staring at their hostility all through the night.

if I call out to the Pit, "You're my father!' or say to the worm, "My mother!' or "My sister!'

where would my hope be? "And speaking of my hope, who would notice it?

Will it go down to the bars that lock the doors of the afterlife? Will we descend together into the dust?"

Light in his tent is dark, and his lamp goes out above him.

"He is petrified by terror that surrounds him on all sides; they chase at his heels.

People who live west of him are appalled at his fate; those who live east of him are seized with terror.

"How long do you intend to keep torturing me and trying to break me by what you're saying?

Even if it's true that I've erred, my error only affects me.

then at least you must know that God has accused me of wrong, and trapped me with his net."

"Although I cried out "Violence!' I received no answer; I cried for help, but there was no justice.

He blocked my path, so I cannot pass; and he turned out the lights on my pathways.

He is breaking me down on every side, and now it's too late for me; he has uprooted my hopes like a tree.

whom I will see for myself. My own eyes will look at him there won't be anyone else for me! He is the culmination of my innermost desire."

Make sure that you remain wary of God's sword, for God's wrath brings with it the sword of punishment, by which you'll know there's a judgment."

"An eye that gazes at him won't do so again; and his place won't even recognize him.

Though his bones were full of youthful vigor; yet they will lie down with him in the dust.

Though evil tastes sweet in his mouth, though he conceals it under his tongue,

though he savors it and delays swallowing it so he can taste it again and again in his mouth,

his food will turn rancid in his stomach it will become a cobra's poison inside him.

"Though he swallows wealth, he will vomit it; God will dislodge it from his stomach.

He won't look at the rivers the torrents of honey and curd.

"He will restore what he has attained from his work and won't consume it; he won't enjoy the profits from his business transactions,

"It will come about that, when he has filled himself to the full, God will vent his burning anger on him; he will pour it out on him and on his body.