Job Decries His Comforters

1And Job answered and said:

2“I have heard many such things,

all of you⁺ comforters of trouble.

3Is an end to words of wind?

Or what compels you that you answer?

4I 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.

5I could strengthen you⁺ with my mouth,

and the moving of my lips would bring relief.

6If I speak, my sorrow is not relieved;

and if I cease, how will it go from me?

7Surely now He has worn me out;

You have devastated all my company.

8You have bound me—it is a witness;

and my leanness rises up against me; it testifies against my face.

9In His anger He tears me and hates me;

He gnashes at me with His teeth;

My adversary sharpens His eyes against me.

10They gape at me with their mouth,

in scorn they strike my cheeks;

as one they mass themselves against me.

11God shuts me up to the ungodly,

and upon the hands of the wicked He wrings me out.

12I 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.

13His archers circle round against me;

He splits my kidneys and does not spare;

He pours out my gall on the ground.

14He breaches me, breach upon face of the breach;

He runs upon me like a warrior.

15I have sewn sackcloth over my skin,

and I have thrust my horn into the dust.

16My face is red from weeping,

and on my eyelids is the shadow of death,

17although violence is not in my hands,

and my prayer is pure.

18O earth, may you not cover my blood,

and let there not be a place for my cry!

19Even now, behold! My testimony is in the heavens,

and my witness is in the heights.

20My friends are mocking me;

my eye pours out to God.

21And he reasons for a man with God,

and as a son of man for his friend.

22For the years of my number have come,

and the path of no return I shall walk.