Job 16

1 And Job answered and said:

2 “I have heard many such things, all of you⁺ comforters of trouble.

3 [Is] an end to words of wind? Or what compels you that you answer?

4 I also could speak as you⁺, if your⁺ soul were in place of my soul; I could join together words against you⁺, and shake at you⁺ with my head.

5 I could strengthen you⁺ with my mouth, and the moving of my lips would bring relief.

6 If I speak, my sorrow is not relieved; and [if] I cease, how will it go from me?

7 Surely now He has worn me out; You have devastated all my company.

8 You have bound me—it is a witness; and my leanness rises up against me; it testifies against my face.

9 [In] His anger He tears [me] and hates me; He gnashes at me with His teeth; My adversary sharpens His eyes against me.

10 They gape at me with their mouth, in scorn they strike my cheeks; as one they mass themselves against me.

11 God shuts me up to the ungodly, and upon the hands of the wicked He wrings me out.

12 I was at ease, and He broke me; and He seized me by my neck and shattered me, and stood me up for Him as a target.

13 His archers circle round against me; He splits my kidneys and does not spare; He pours out my gall on the ground.

14 He breaches me, breach upon face of the breach; He runs upon me like a warrior.

15 I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and I have thrust my horn into the dust.

16 My face is red from weeping, and on my eyelids [is] the shadow of death,

17 although violence is not in my hands, and my prayer [is] pure.

18 O earth, may you not cover my blood, and let there not be a place for my cry!

19 Even now, behold! My testimony [is] in the heavens, and my witness [is] in the heights.

20 My friends are mocking me; my eye pours out to God.

21 And he reasons for a man with God, and [as] a son of man for his friend.

22 For the years of [my] number have come, and the path of no return I shall walk.