[1] Then Job answered and said,
[2] I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are you all.
[3] Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldens you that you answer?
[4] I also could speak as you do: if your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you.
[5] But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief.
[6] Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased?
[7] But now he has made me weary: you have made desolate all my company.
[8] And you have filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me bears witness to my face.
[9] He tears me in his wrath, who hates me: he gnashes on me with his teeth; my enemy sharpens his eyes on me.
[10] They have gaped on me with their mouth; they have smitten me on the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together 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 broken me asunder: he has also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark.
[13] His archers compass me round about, he splits my reins asunder, and does not spare; he pours out my gall on the ground.
[14] He breaks me with breach on breach, he runs on me like a giant.
[15] I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.
[16] My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;
[17] Not for any injustice in my hands: also my prayer is pure.
[18] O earth, cover not you my blood, and let my cry have no place.
[19] Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high.
[20] My friends scorn me: but my eye pours out tears to God.
[21] O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor!
[22] When a few years are come, then I shall go the way from where I shall not return.
