| 章 |
| 16:1 |
Then Job answered:
|
| 16:2 |
"I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all.
|
| 16:3 |
Have windy words no limit? Or what provokes you that you keep on talking?
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| 16:4 |
I also could talk as you do, if you were in my place; I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you.
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| 16:5 |
I could encourage you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.
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| 16:6 |
"If I speak, my pain is not assuaged, and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
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| 16:7 |
Surely now God has worn me out; he has made desolate all my company.
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| 16:8 |
And he has shriveled me up, which is a witness against me; my leanness has risen up against me, and 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 |
They have gaped at me with their mouths; they have struck me insolently on 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.
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| 16:12 |
I was at ease, and he broke me in two; 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 shows no mercy; he pours out my gall on the ground.
|
| 16:14 |
He bursts upon me again and again; he rushes at 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 deep darkness is on my eyelids,
|
| 16:17 |
though there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
|
| 16:18 |
"O earth, do not cover my blood; let my outcry find no resting place.
|
| 16:19 |
Even now, in fact, 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 mortal with God, as one does for a neighbor.
|
| 16:22 |
For when a few years have come, I shall go the way from which I shall not return.
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