1Then Job answered and said,
2I have heard many such things: Miserable comforters are you all.
3Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
4I also could speak as you do; If your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could join words together against you, And shake my head at you.
5But I would strengthen you with my mouth, And the solace of my lips would assuage your grief.
6Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged; And though I refrain, how am I eased?
7But now he has made me weary: You have made desolate all my company.
8And you have laid fast hold on me, which is a witness against me: And my leanness rises up against me, It testifies to my face.
9He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me; He has gnashed at me with his teeth: My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.
10They have gaped at me with their mouth; They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully: They gather themselves together against me.
11God delivers me to the ungodly, And casts me into the hands of the wicked.
12I was at ease, and he broke me apart; Indeed, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces: He has also set me up for his mark.
13His archers surround me; He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare; He pours out my gall on the ground.
14He breaks me with breach upon breach; He runs at me like a giant.
15I have sewn sackcloth on my skin, And have laid my horn in the dust.
16My face is red with weeping, And on my eyelids is the shadow of death;
17Although there is no violence in my hands, And my prayer is pure.
18O earth, do not cover my blood, And let my cry have no resting-place.
19Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, And he who vouches for me is on high.
20My friends scoff at me: But my eye pours out tears to God,
21That he would maintain the right of a man with God, And of a son of man with his neighbor!
22For when a few years have come, I shall go the way from which I shall not return.