• Job Reproaches His Pitiless Friends

  • 1 Then Job answered and said:
  • 2 “I have heard many such things; Miserable comforters are you all!
  • 3 Shall words of wind have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
  • 4 I also could speak as you do, If your soul were in my soul’s place. I could heap up words against you, And shake my head at you;
  • 5 But I would strengthen you with my mouth, And the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief.
  • 6 “Though I speak, my grief is not relieved; And if I remain silent, how am I eased?
  • 7 But now He has worn me out; You have made desolate all my company.
  • 8 You have shriveled me up, And it is a witness against me; My leanness rises up against me And bears witness to my face.
  • 9 He tears me in His wrath, and hates me; He gnashes at me with His teeth; My adversary sharpens His gaze on me.
  • 10 They gape at me with their mouth, They strike me reproachfully on the cheek, They gather together against me.
  • 11 God has delivered me to the ungodly, And turned me over to the hands of the wicked.
  • 12 I was at ease, but He has shattered me; He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces; He has set me up for His target,
  • 13 His archers surround me. He pierces my heart and does not pity; He pours out my gall on the ground.
  • 14 He breaks me with wound upon wound; He runs at me like a warrior.
  • 15 “I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, And laid my head in the dust.
  • 16 My face is flushed from weeping, And on my eyelids is the shadow of death;
  • 17 Although no violence is in my hands, And my prayer is pure.
  • 18 “O earth, do not cover my blood, And let my cry have no resting place!
  • 19 Surely even now my witness is in heaven, And my evidence is on high.
  • 20 My friends scorn me; My eyes pour out tears to God.
  • 21 Oh, that one might plead for a man with God, As a man pleads for his neighbor!
  • 22 For when a few years are finished, I shall go the way of no return.