Job 16

« Job 15 | Job 16 | Job 17 »

Troublesome Comforters

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.

« Job 15 | Job 16 | Job 17 »

Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved.
Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. lsbible.org