Troublesome Comforters

¹Then Job answered and said,

²“I have heard many such things;

Troublesome comforters are you all.

³“Is there no end to windy 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 shake 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, my pain is not lessened,

And if I cease, what will go forth from me?

⁷“But now He has exhausted me;

You have made desolate all my company.

⁸“You have shriveled me up,

It has become a witness;

And my leanness rises up against me,

It answers to my face.

⁹“His anger has torn me and hunted me down;[#16:9 Lit borne a grudge against me]

He has gnashed at me with His teeth;

My adversary sharpens his eyes to look at me.

¹⁰“They have opened their mouth wide at me;

They have struck me on the cheek in reproach;

They have massed 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 He shattered me,

And He has grasped me by the neck and shaken me to pieces;

He has also set me up as His target.

¹³“His arrows surround me.

Without mercy He splits my kidneys open;

He pours out my gall on the ground.

¹⁴“He breaks through me with breach after breach;

He runs at me like a warrior.

¹⁵“I have sewed sackcloth over my skin

And thrust my horn in the dust.

¹⁶“My face is flushed from weeping,

And the shadow of death is on my eyelids,

¹⁷Why? —because there is no violence in my hands,

And my 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, my witness is in heaven,

And my advocate is on high.

²⁰“My friends are my scoffers;

My eye weeps to God.

²¹“O that a man might argue with God

As a man with his neighbor!

²²“For when a few years are past,

I shall go the way of no return.