• Job

  • 1 Then Job replied:
  • 2 “I have heard many things like these; you are miserable comforters, all of you!
  • 3 Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?
  • 4 I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you.
  • 5 But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.
  • 6 “Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away.
  • 7 Surely, God, you have worn me out; you have devastated my entire household.
  • 8 You have shriveled me up—and it has become a witness; my gauntness rises up and testifies against me.
  • 9 God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.
  • 10 People open their mouths to jeer at me; they strike my cheek in scorn and unite together against me.
  • 11 God has turned me over to the ungodly and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked.
  • 12 All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target;
  • 13 his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground.
  • 14 Again and again he bursts upon me; he rushes at me like a warrior.
  • 15 “I have sewed sackcloth over my skin and buried my brow in the dust.
  • 16 My face is red with weeping, dark shadows ring my eyes;
  • 17 yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure.
  • 18 “Earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest!
  • 19 Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high.
  • 20 My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God;
  • 21 on behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend.
  • 22 “Only a few years will pass before I take the path of no return.