Job Answers: Y’all Are No Comforters

¹Then Job answered,

²“I have heard many such things.

You are all miserable comforters!

³Will vain words have an end?

Or what provokes you that you answer?

⁴I also could speak as y’all do.

If y’all’s soul were in my soul’s place,

I could join words together against y’all,

and shake my head at y’all,

⁵but I would strengthen y’all with my mouth.

The solace of my lips would bring relief.

⁶“Though I speak, my grief is not subsided.

Though I refrain, what am I eased?

⁷But now, God, you have surely worn me out.

You have made all my company desolate.

⁸You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me.

My leanness rises up against me.

It testifies to my face.

⁹Hɪꜱ anger has torn me and persecuted me.

Hᴇ has gnashed on me with ʜɪꜱ teeth.

My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.

¹⁰They have gaped on me with their mouth.

They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully.

They gather themselves together against me.

¹¹God delivers me to the ungodly,

and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, and ʜᴇ broke me apart.

Yes, ʜᴇ has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces.

Hᴇ has also set me up for ʜɪꜱ target.

¹³Hɪꜱ archers surround me.

Hᴇ splits my kidneys apart without mercy.

Hᴇ pours out my bile on the ground.

¹⁴Hᴇ breaks me with breach on breach.

Hᴇ runs at me like a giant.

¹⁵I have sewed sackcloth on my skin,

and have thrust my horn in the dust.

¹⁶My face is red with weeping.

Deep darkness is on my eyelids,

¹⁷although there is no violence in my hands,

and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸“Earth, don’t cover my blood.

Let my cry have no place to rest.

¹⁹Even now, my witness is in heaven.

My advocate is on high.

²⁰My friends scoff at me,

as my eyes pour out tears to God.

²¹Oh that he would plead with God for a man,

as a son of man with his neighbor!

²²For when a few years have come,

I will go the way of no return.