Troublesome Comforters
Then Job answered and said,
2 “I have heard many such things;
aTroublesome comforters are you all.
3 Is there no end to awindy words?
Or what pains you that you answer?
4 I too could speak like you,
If your soul were in the place of my soul.
I could compose words against you
And ashake my head at you.
5 I could encourage you with my mouth,
And the solace of my lips could lessen your pain.
6 “If I speak, amy pain is not lessened,
And if I cease, what will go forth from me?
7 But now He has aexhausted me;
You have made bdesolate all my company.
8 You have shriveled me up,
aIt has become a witness;
And my bleanness rises up against me,
It answers to my face.
9 His anger has atorn me and hunted me down;
He has bgnashed at me with His teeth;
My cadversary sharpens his eyes to look at me.
10 They have aopened their mouth wide at me;
They have bstruck me on the cheek in reproach;
They have cmassed themselves against me.
11 God hands me over to ruffians
And tosses me into the hands of the wicked.
12 I was at ease, but aHe shattered me,
And He has grasped me by the neck and shaken me to pieces;
He has also set me up as His btarget.
13 His aarrows surround me.
Without mercy He splits my kidneys open;
He pours out bmy gall on the ground.
14 He abreaks through me with breach after breach;
He bruns at me like a warrior.
15 I have sewed asackcloth over my skin
And bthrust my horn in the dust.
16 My face is flushed from aweeping,
bAnd the shadow of death is on my eyelids,
17 Why?—because there is no aviolence in my hands,
And bmy prayer is pure.
18 “O earth, do not cover my blood,
And let there be no resting place for my cry.
19 Even now, behold, amy witness is in heaven,
And my advocate is bon high.
20 My friends are my scoffers;
aMy eye weeps to God.
21 O that a man might argue with God
As a son of man with his neighbor!
22 For when a few years are past,
I shall go the way aof no return.