| 1 | Then Job answered: |
| 2 | “I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all. |
| 3 | Have windy words no limit? Or what provokes you that you keep on talking? |
| 4 | I also could talk as you do, if you were in my place; I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you. |
| 5 | I could encourage 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; he has made desolate all my company. |
| 8 | And he has shriveled me up, which is a witness against me; my leanness has risen up against me, and it testifies to my face. |
| 9 | He has torn me in his wrath, and hated me; he has gnashed his teeth at me; my adversary sharpens his eyes against me. |
| 10 | They have gaped at me with their mouths; they have struck me insolently on the cheek; they 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 in two; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces; he set me up as his target; |
| 13 | his archers surround me. He slashes open my kidneys, and shows no mercy; he pours out my gall on the ground. |
| 14 | He bursts upon me again and again; he rushes at me like a warrior. |
| 15 | I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and have laid my strength in the dust. |
| 16 | My face is red with weeping, and deep darkness is on my eyelids, |
| 17 | though there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure. |
| 18 | “O earth, do not cover my blood; let my outcry find no resting place. |
| 19 | Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven, and he that vouches for me is on high. |
| 20 | My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God, |
| 21 | that he would maintain the right of a mortal with God, as one does for a neighbor. |
| 22 | For when a few years have come, I shall go the way from which I shall not return. |