|
[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
|