Job 16:1-20

Job Says Friends Are Miserable Comforters

¹Then 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,

17Although 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,