• Job Says Friends Are Miserable Comforters

  • 1 Then Job responded,
  • 2 “I have heard many things like these; Miserable comforters are you all!
  • 3 “Is there no end to windy words? Or what provokes you that you answer?
  • 4 “I too could speak like you, If only I were in your place. I could compose words against you And shake my head at you.
  • 5 “Or I could strengthen you with my mouth, And the condolence of my lips could lessen your pain.

  • Job Says God Shattered Him

  • 6 “If I speak, my pain is not lessened, And if I refrain, what pain leaves me?
  • 7 “But now He has exhausted me; You have laid waste all my group of loved ones.
  • 8 “And You have shriveled me up, It has become a witness; And my infirmity rises up against me, It testifies to my face.
  • 9 “His anger has torn me and hunted me down, He has gnashed at me with His teeth; My enemy glares at me.
  • 10 “They have gaped at me with their mouths, They have slapped me on the cheek with contempt; They have massed themselves against me.
  • 11 “God hands me over to criminals, And tosses me into the hands of the wicked.
  • 12 “I was at ease, but He shattered me, And He has grasped me by my neck and shaken me to pieces; He has also set me up as His target.
  • 13 “His arrows surround me. He splits my kidneys open without mercy; He pours out my bile 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 deep darkness is on my eyelids,
  • 17 Although there is no violence in my hands, And my prayer is pure.
  • 18 “Earth, do not cover my blood, And may 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 That one might plead for a man with God As a son of man with his neighbor!
  • 22 “For when a few years are past, I shall go the way of no return.