Job 16:1-13 ▼

1 Then Job answered:

2 “I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all.

3 Have windy words no limit? Or what provokes you that you keep on talking?

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.

5 I could encourage you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.

6 “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged, and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?

7 Surely now God has worn me out; he has made desolate all my company.

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.

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.

10 They have gaped at me with their mouths; they have struck me insolently on the cheek; they mass themselves together against me.

11 God gives me up to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

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;

13 his archers surround me. He slashes open my kidneys, and shows no mercy; he pours out my gall on the ground.