16:1 Then Job responded,
16:2 “I have heard many things like these;
①Miserable comforters are you all!
▷ ①Lit Comforters of trouble
16:3 Is there no end to windy words?
Or what provokes you that you answer?
16:4 I too could speak like you,
If only ①I were in your place.
I could compose words against you
And shake my head at you.
▷ ①Lit your soul were in place of my soul
16:5 Or I could strengthen you with my mouth,
And the condolence of my lips could lessen your pain.
16:6 “If I speak, my pain is not lessened,
And if I refrain, what pain leaves me?
16:7 But now He has exhausted me;
You have laid waste all my group of loved ones.
16:8 And you have shriveled me up,
①It has become a witness;
And my infirmity rises up against me,
It testifies to my face.
▷ ①I.e., Job’s condition
16:9 His anger has torn me and ①hunted me down,
He has gnashed at me with His teeth;
My enemy ②glares at me.
▷ ①Lit borne a grudge against me ②Lit sharpens his eyes
16:10 They have gaped at me with their mouths,
They have ①slapped me on the cheek with contempt;
They have massed themselves against me.
▷ ①Lit struck
16:11 God hands me over to criminals,
And tosses me into the hands of the wicked.
16:12 I was at ease, but He shattered me,
And He has grasped me by my neck and shaken me to pieces;
He has also set me up as His target.
16:13 His arrows surround me.
He splits my kidneys open without mercy;
He pours out my bile on the ground.
16:14 He breaks through me with breach after breach;
He runs at me like a warrior.
16:15 I have sewed sackcloth over my skin,
And thrust my horn in the dust.
16:16 My face is flushed from weeping,
And deep darkness is on my eyelids,
16:17 Although there is no violence in my hands,
And my prayer is pure.
16:18 “Earth, do not cover my blood,
And may there be no resting place for my cry.
16:19 Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,
And my ①advocate is on high.
▷ ①Or witness
16:20 My friends are my scoffers;
My eye weeps to God,
16:21 That one might plead for a man with God
As a son of man with his neighbor!
16:22 For when a few years are past,
I shall go the way of no return.