Job 16

¹ Job spoke next. He said:

² How often have I heard all this before! What sorry comforters you are!

³ Is there never to be an end of airy words? What a plague your need to have the last word is!

⁴ I too could talk like you, were your soul in the plight of mine. I too could overwhelm you with sermons, I could shake my head over you,

⁵ and speak words of encouragement, until my lips grew tired.

⁶ But, while I am speaking, my suffering remains; and when I am not, do I suffer any the less?

⁷ And now ill-will drives me to distraction,

⁸ and a whole host molests me, rising, like some witness for the prosecution, to utter slander to my very face.

⁹ In tearing fury it pursues me, with gnashing teeth. My enemies whet their eyes on me,

¹⁰ and open gaping jaws. Their insults strike like slaps in the face, and all set on me together.

¹¹ Yes, God has handed me over to the godless, and cast me into the hands of the wicked.

¹² I lived at peace, until he shattered me, taking me by the neck to dash me to pieces. He has made me a target for his archery,

¹³ shooting his arrows at me from every side. Pitiless, through the loins he pierces me, and scatters my gall on the ground.

¹⁴ Breach after breach he drives through me, bearing down on me like a warrior.

¹⁵ I have sewn sackcloth over my skin and rubbed my brow in the dust.

¹⁶ My face is red with tears, and a veil of shadow hangs on my eyelids.

¹⁷ This notwithstanding, my hands are free of violence,

¹⁸ and my prayer is undefiled. Cover not my blood, O earth,[*a] afford my cry no place to rest.

¹⁹ Henceforth I have a witness in heaven, my defender is there in the height.

²⁰ My own lament is my advocate with God, while my tears flow before him.

²¹ Let this plead for me as I stand before God, as a man will plead for his fellows.

²² For the years of my life are numbered, and I shall soon take the road of no return.