- 1
- ¶ THEN Job answered and said,
- 2
- I have heard many such things;
wicked comforters are you all.
- 3
- Do not grieve my spirit with words;
even though you speak, I will not answer.
- 4
- I also could speak as you do;
I wish you were in my place, then I could try you out with words, and shake my head at you.
- 5
- I would prove you with your own words, and the words of my lips would not spare you.
- 6
- ¶ If I speak, my pain is not assuaged;
and if I forbear, who can comfort me?
- 7
- But now he has troubled me, and yet has preserved all of my testimony.
- 8
- Thou didst appoint me and I became a witness, but my lies have testified against me;
and I spoke in his presence.
- 9
- He has torn me and broken me in his wrath;
he gnashes upon me with his teeth; my enemy sharpens his eyes against me.
- 10
- They have gaped upon me with their mouth reproachfully;
they have smitten me upon my cheeks; they were filled with rage against me.
- 11
- God has delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
- 12
- I was at ease, but he has smitten me;
he has also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his target.
- 13
- His arrows are round about me, he shoots at my kidneys and does not spare;
he pours out my gall on the ground.
- 14
- He breaks me with breach upon breach;
he runs against me like a giant.
- 15
- I have girded sackcloth upon my skin, and I have covered my head with dust.
- 16
- My face is troubled with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;
- 17
- ¶ But not for any iniquity in my hands;
my prayer also is pure.
- 18
- O earth, cover not my blood, and let my cry have no place!
- 19
- And now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my acquaintances are on high.
- 20
- O my brethren and my neighbors!
my eyes pour out tears to God!
- 21
- O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor!
- 22
- For the number of a man’s years will come to an end;
then he shall go the way from whence he shall not return.
|