• Troublesome Comforters

  • 1 Then 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; 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,
  • 17 Why?—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.