1 Then Job answered and said:
2 I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all!
3 Is there no end to windy words? What ails you that you answer thus?
4 I also could speak as you do, if your soul were in the place of my soul. I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you.
5 But I would assure you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips would be restrained.
6 When I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I remain silent, how do I proceed?
7 But now He has exhausted me; you have devastated my company.
8 You have seized me as a witness; my deception rises up against me and testifies to my face.
9 He tears me in His wrath, and hates me; He gnashes at me with His teeth; my adversary sharpens His eyes at me.
10 They have gaped at me with their mouth, and struck me reproachfully on the cheek; they gather together against me.
11 The Mighty God has delivered me to the perverse, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
12 I was at ease, but He has shattered me; He also has taken hold on my neck, and dashed me to pieces; He has set me up for His target.
13 His archers surround me; He pierces my heart and does not pity; He pours out my gall on the ground.
14 He breaks me with break upon break; He runs at me like a mighty man.
15 I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and have thrust my horn into the dust.
16 My face is flushed from weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;
17 although no violence is in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
18 O earth, do not cover my blood, and let my cry have no resting place!
19 Even now, behold, my evidence is in Heaven, and my witness is on high.
20 My friends scorn me; my eyes pour out tears to God.
21 Oh, that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for the son of his friend!
22 For when the number of years have come, I shall go the way from which I shall not return.