Job
16
- Then Job replied:
- "I have heard many things like these;
miserable comforters are you all !
- Will your long-winded speeches never end?
What ails you that you keep on arguing ?
- I also could speak like you, if you were
in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you.
- But my mouth would encourage you; comfort
from my lips would bring you relief.
- "Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved;
and if I refrain, it does not go away.
- Surely, O God, you have worn me out; you
have devastated my entire household.
- You have bound me -- and it has become a
witness; my gauntness rises up and testifies against me.
- God assails me and tears me in his anger
and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.
- Men open their mouths to jeer at me; they
strike my cheek in scorn and unite together against me.
- God has turned me over to evil men and thrown
me into the clutches of the wicked.
- All was well with me, but he shattered me;
he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target;
- his archers surround me. Without pity, he
pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground.
- Again and again he bursts upon me; he rushes
at me like a warrior.
- "I have sewed sackcloth over my skin
and buried my brow in the dust.
- My face is red with weeping, deep shadows
ring my eyes;
- yet my hands have been free of violence and
my prayer is pure.
- "O earth, do not cover my blood; may
my cry never be laid to rest !
- Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate
is on high.
- My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour
out tears to God;
- on behalf of a man he pleads with God as
a man pleads for his friend.
- "Only a few years will pass before I
go on the journey of no return.
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