Job 16

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?[#Lit windy ; Jb 15:2; #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.

⁶Even if I speak, my suffering is not relieved,

and if I hold back, what have I lost?

⁷Surely He has now exhausted me.[#Or it]

You have devastated my entire family.

⁸You have shriveled me up — it has become a witness;[#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.[#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 unjust men;[#LXX, Vg; MT reads to a boy]

He throws me into the hands of 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.[#Or arrows]

He pierces my kidneys without mercy

and pours my bile on the ground.

¹⁴He breaks through my defenses again and again;[#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[#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 arbitrate

between a man and God

just as a man pleads for his friend.

²²For only a few years will pass

before I go the way of no return.