Job Reproaches His Pitiless Friends

² “I have heard many such things;
Miserable comforters are you all!

³ Shall words of wind have an end?
Or what provokes you that you answer?

⁴ I also could speak as you do,
If your soul were in my soul’s place.
I could heap up words against you,
And shake my head at you;

⁵ But I would strengthen you with my mouth,
And the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief.

⁶ “ Though I speak, my grief is not relieved;
And if I remain silent, how am I eased?

⁷ But now He has worn me out;
You have made desolate all my company.

⁸ You have shriveled me up,
And it is a witness against me;
My leanness rises up against me
And bears witness to my face.

⁹ He tears me in His wrath, and hates me;
He gnashes at me with His teeth;
My adversary sharpens His gaze on me.

¹⁰ They gape at me with their mouth,
They strike me reproachfully on the cheek,
They gather together against me.

¹¹ God has delivered me to the ungodly,
And turned me over to the hands of the wicked.

¹² I was at ease, but He has shattered me;
He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces;
He has set me up for His target,

¹³ His archers surround me.
He pierces my heart^[a] and does not pity;
He pours out my gall on the ground.

¹⁴ He breaks me with wound upon wound;
He runs at me like a warrior.^[b]

¹⁵ “I have sewn sackcloth over my skin,
And laid my head^[c] in the dust.

¹⁶ My face is flushed from weeping,
And on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

¹⁷ Although no violence is in my hands,
And my prayer is pure.

¹⁸ “O earth, do not cover my blood,
And let my cry have no resting place!

¹⁹ Surely even now my witness is in heaven,
And my evidence is on high.

²⁰ My friends scorn me;
My eyes pour out tears to God.

²¹ Oh, that one might plead for a man with God,
As a man pleads for his neighbor!

²² For when a few years are finished,
I shall go the way of no return.