Job 16  Lexham English Bible

² “I have heard many things like these;
all of you are miserable comforters.^[b]
3 Is there a limit to windy words?
What provokes you that you answer?
⁴ I myself^[c] also could talk as you,
if you were in my place;^[d]
I could join against you with words,
and I could shake at you with my head.
⁵ I could^[e] encourage you with my mouth,
and the solace of my lips would^[f] ease the pain.
⁶ If I speak, my pain is not relieved;
and if I cease, how much will leave me?
⁷ “Surely now he has worn me out;
you^[g] have devastated all my company.
⁸ Thus^[h] you shriveled me up;^[i]
it became a witness.
And my leanness has risen up against me;
it testifies to my face.
⁹ His wrath has torn, and he has been hostile toward me;
he gnashed at me with his teeth.
My foe sharpens his eyes against me.
¹⁰ They gaped at me with their mouth;
they struck my cheeks with disgrace;
they have massed themselves together against me.
¹¹ God delivers me to an evil one,
and he casts me into the hands of the wicked.
¹² “I was at ease, then^[j] he broke me in two,
and he seized me by my neck;
then^[k] he shattered me
and set me up as a target for him.
¹³ His archers surround me;
he slashes open my kidneys, and he does not have compassion;
he pours out my gall on the ground.
¹⁴ He breached me breach upon breach;^[l]
he rushes at me like a warrior.
¹⁵ “I have sewed sackcloth on my skin,
and I have inserted my pride^[m] in the dust.
¹⁶ My face is red because of weeping,
and deep shadows are on my eyelids,
¹⁷ although^[n] violence is not on my hands,
and my prayer is pure.
¹⁸ “O earth, you should not cover my blood,
and let there be no place^[o] for my cry for help.
¹⁹ So now look, my witness is in the heavens,
and he who vouches for me is in the heights.
²⁰ My friends scorn me;
my eye pours out tears to God,
²¹ and it argues^[p] for a mortal with God,
and as a human^[q] for his friend.
²² Indeed, after a few years^[r] have come,
then^[s] I will go the way from which I will not return.