Job’s Reply to Eliphaz

¹Then Job answered:

²I have heard many things like these.

You are all miserable comforters.

³Is there no end to your empty , words?[#16:3 Lit windy ; Jb 15:2; #16:3 Jb 15:2]

What provokes you that you continue testifying?

⁴If you were in my place I could also talk like you.

I could string words together against you

and shake my head at you.

⁵Instead, I would encourage you with my mouth,

and the consolation from my lips would bring relief.

⁶If I speak, my suffering is not relieved,

and if I hold back, does any of it leave me?

⁷Surely he has now exhausted me.[#16:7 Or it]

You have devastated my entire family.

⁸You have shriveled me up #— #it has become a witness;[#16:8 Or have seized me ; Hb obscure]

my frailty rises up against me and testifies to my face.

⁹His anger tears at me, and he harasses me.[#16:9 Gn 49:23; Jb 30:21; Ps 55:3]

He gnashes his teeth at me.

My enemy pierces me with his eyes.

¹⁰They open their mouths against me

and strike my cheeks with contempt;

they join themselves together against me.

¹¹God hands me over to the unjust;[#16:11 LXX, Vg; MT reads to a boy]

he throws me to the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, but he shattered me;

he seized me by the scruff of the neck

and smashed me to pieces.

He set me up as his target;

¹³his archers surround me.[#16:13 Or arrows]

He pierces my kidneys without mercy

and pours my bile on the ground.

¹⁴He breaks through my defenses again and again;[#16:14 Lit through me, breach on breach]

he charges at me like a warrior.

¹⁵I have sewn sackcloth over my skin;

I have buried my strength in the dust.

¹⁶My face has grown red with weeping,

and darkness covers my eyes,

¹⁷although my hands are free from violence[#16:17 Is 53:9; 59:6; Jnh 3:8]

and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸Earth, do not cover my blood;

may my cry for help find no resting place.

¹⁹Even now my witness is in heaven,

and my advocate is in the heights!

²⁰My friends scoff at me

as I weep before God.

²¹I wish that someone might argue for a man with God[#16:21 Jb 31:35; Ec 6:10; Is 45:9]

just as anyone would for a friend.

²²For only a few years will pass

before I go the way of no return.