² Job: All the things from you sound the same.
        You are all terrible as comforters!
³     Have we reached the end of your windy words,
        or are you sick with something that compels you to argue with me?
⁴     If we were to trade places,
        I could rattle on as you do.
    I could compose eloquent speeches as you do
        and shake my head smugly at you and your problems.
⁵     But I believe I would use my words to encourage you;
        my lips would move only to offer you relief.

⁶     And yet, I am not you, you are not me,
        and my words are of no real use:
    When I speak, my pain is not relieved;
        if I remain silent, it does not go away.
⁷     God has drained me utterly;
        He has made those near to me desolate—killed my family and my servants.
⁸     You have shriveled me up;
        my withered form stands as a witness against me;
        my body, haggard and thin, testifies to my face.
⁹     In anger He hunts me down and tears at me;
        in rancor His teeth grind on my flesh;
    His eyes are locked on me as a foe,
        eager to destroy still more of me.
¹⁰     My foes taunt me, their mouths gape in derision,
        they slap my cheek in disgust, and they conspire against me.
¹¹     God has forsaken me to young thugs
        and flung me into the hands of evildoers who lie in wait for me.
¹²     I was living a good life—a quiet, peaceful life—
        when He began to beat on me;
    He throttled my neck, tore me apart,
        and then propped me up
        at the far end of the field, making me a target.
¹³     His archers have now gathered around me.
        In cold blood He splits my belly open and spills my bile on the earth.
¹⁴     He charged like a soldier storming a stronghold
        until my walls were breached, broken down, one after another.

¹⁵ Job: Well, I have sewed the sackcloth to my very skin
        and buried my mighty forehead in the dirt.
¹⁶     My face, red and hot, boils over in tears;
        the shadow of darkness lies heavy on my eyelids,
¹⁷     No matter that my hands are free of violence,
        and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸     O earth, do not conceal my blood!
        And when they seek to silence my cry, refuse a place for its burial.
¹⁹     Look! Even at this very moment, my witness is there, in heaven;
        my advocate is seated on high.
²⁰     My only friends scoff at me; they persist in mocking me;
        even now my eyes well up in tears to God,
²¹     Appealing to God as a mere man,
        as a human being might for the sake of his friend.
²²     Only a few years left now,
        and I will go down the path from which I cannot return.