Chapter 16

Then Job spoke out saying:

I have heard plenty of things like these before.

   Wretched comforters are the three of you.

Is there any end to your words of hot air?

   What afflicts you that you keep speaking on?

I too can speak as you do,

   Were you in my place,

String words together towards you,

   Shake my head over you.

Encourage you with my mouth,

   Sympathy holding back my lips.

Yet now should I speak,

   My pain would not be assuaged,

Should I desist,

   How much goes away?

Surely now God has worn me out,

   You have made desolate company.

You have crimpled my skin,

   Which has become a witness against me,

My emaciation has risen up,

   Bearing witness with my face.

In His wrath, He rends me, He reviles me,

   He has gnashed His teeth against me,

      My foe sharpens his gaze upon me.

They open wide their mouths at me,

   In scorn, they strike my cheek,

      Together they close ranks upon me.

God hands me over to the evil doer,

   Wrings me out through the hands of the wicked.

I was untroubled – but he shattered me,

   Seized me by the nape, and crushed me,

He set me up as a target,

   His archers surround me,

He pierces my gut without mercy,

   He pours out my gall upon the ground.

He bursts upon me, breach after breach,

   Rushes at me, like a warrior.

I have patched my scabs with sack cloth,

   Have buried my dignity in the dust.

My face is flush with weeping,

   Death’s darkness rings my eyes.

Though there was no injustice on my hands,

   And my prayer was pure.

O earth, cover not my blood,

   Let me cry have no resting place.

Behold, even now my witness stands in heaven,

   My advocate is on high,

Are my companions my intercessors?

   To God does my eye pour out its tears!

That God would judge between a man and Himself,

   As He would for a man and his neighbor.

For only a few years were yet to come,

   Before I would go the way of no return.