‏ Job 16

Job expostulates with his friends: and appeals to the judgment of God.

1Then Job, answering, said: 2I have often heard such things; you are all aggravating comforters. 3Will there be no end to windy words? Or is it at all a burden to you, if you speak? 4I, too, can speak like you; and I also wish that your soul favored my soul. 5I would also comfort you with speeches and would wag my head over you. 6I would strengthen you with my mouth, and would move my lips, as if being lenient to you. 7But what can I do? When I am speaking, my grief will not be quiet; and if I am quiet, it will not withdraw from me. 8But now my grief has crushed me, and all my limbs have been reduced to nothing. 9My wrinkles bear witness against me, and a liar rises up against my face, contradicting me. 10He has gathered together his fury towards me, and, threatening me, he has roared against me with his teeth; my enemy has beheld me with terrible eyes. 11They have opened their mouths against me, and, reproaching me, they have struck me on the cheek; they are nourished by my sufferings. 12God has confined me with the immoral, and he has delivered me into the hands of the impious. 13I, who once was wealthy, am now crushed. He has grabbed me by my neck; he has broken me and has placed me before him as a sign. 14He has surrounded me with his lances. He has severely wounded my lower back, he has not been lenient, and he has poured out my organs upon the earth. 15He has cut me with wound after wound. He has rushed upon me like a giant. 16I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and I have covered my body with ashes. 17My face is swollen from weeping, and my eyelids have dimmed my vision. 18These things I have endured without iniquity in my hand, while I held pure prayers before God. 19O earth, do not conceal my blood, nor let my outcry find a hiding place in you. 20For behold, my witness is in heaven, and my confidante is on high. 21My friends are full of words; my eye rains tears upon God. 22And I wish that a man might be so judged before God, just as the son of man is judged with his assistant! 23For behold, a few years pass by, and I am walking a path by which I will not return.
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