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Job replied:
2 “I have heard many such things as these;
miserable comforters you all are!
3 Have windy words no end?
What provokes you that you keep on talking?
4 I could also speak as you do,
if you were in my place;
I could heap up words against you,
and shake my head at you.
5 But I would encourage you with my mouth,
and comfort with my lips to ease your pain.
6 “Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved;
and if I hold back, it does not ease.
7 But now God has worn me out;
You have devastated my entire household.
8 You have shrivelled me, and it has become a witness;
my gauntness testifies against me.
9 God tears me in His wrath and persecutes me,
He gnashes His teeth against me.
My opponent focusses His piercing gaze upon me.
10 Men gape at me with their mouths;
they strike me on the cheek with contempt,
they unite themselves together against me.
11 God has delivered me over to the ungodly,
and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
12 I was at ease, but He has shattered me;
He has seized me by the scruff of the neck
and shaken me to pieces.
He has set me up as His target.
13His archers surround me.
He pierces my kidneys and shows me no mercy,
He pours out my gall on the ground.
14 He breaks me again and again;
He rushes at me like a warrior.
15 “I have sewed sackcloth over my skin,
and laid my strength in the dust.
16 My face is flushed with weeping,
and the shadow of death covers my eyes;
17 yet there is no violence on my hands,
and my prayer is pure.
18 “O earth, do not cover my blood,
and let my cry have no resting place.
19 Even now my witness is in heaven;
and my Advocate is on High.
20 My friends scorn me,
but my eyes pour out tears to God.
21 O that someone might arbitrate for a man with God,
as a man pleads for a friend!
22 For when a few years have passed,
I will go on the journey of no return.”