RSV Job 16 Chapter
16:1
Then Job answered:
16:2
'I have heard many such things;miserable comforters are you all.
16:3
Shall windy words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
16:4
I also could speak as you do, if you were in my place;I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you.
16:5
I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.
16:6
'If I speak, my pain is not assuaged, and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
16:7
Surely now God has worn me out;he has made desolate all my company.
16:8
And he has shriveled me up, which is a witness against me;and my leanness has risen up against me, it testifies to my face.
16:9
He has torn me in his wrath, and hated me;he has gnashed his teeth at me;my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
16:10
Men have gaped at me with their mouth, they have struck me insolently upon the cheek, they mass themselves together against me.
16:11
God gives me up to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
16:12
I was at ease, and he broke me asunder;he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;he set me up as his target,
16:13
his archers surround me. He slashes open my kidneys, and does not spare;he pours out my gall on the ground.
16:14
He breaks me with breach upon breach;he runs upon me like a warrior.
16:15
I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and have laid my strength in the dust.
16:16
My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is deep darkness;
16:17
although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
16:18
'O earth, cover not my blood, and let my cry find no resting place.
16:19
Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he that vouches for me is on high.
16:20
My friends scorn me;my eye pours out tears to God,
16:21
that he would maintain the right of a man with God, like that of a man with his neighbor.
16:22
For when a few years have come I shall go the way whence I shall not return.