1 Job Reproaches His Pitiless Friends Then Job answered and said:
2 “I have heard many such things; Job 13:4; 21:34 Miserable comforters are you all!
3 Shall words of wind have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
4 I also could speak as you do, If your soul were in my soul’s place. I could heap up words against you, And Ps. 22:7; 109:25; Lam. 2:15; Zeph. 2:15; Matt. 27:39 shake my head at you;
5 But I would strengthen you with my mouth, And the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief.
6 “Though I speak, my grief is not relieved; And if I remain silent, how am I eased?
7 But now He has Job 7:3 worn me out; You Job 16:20; 19:13–15 have made desolate all my company.
8 You have shriveled me up, And it is a Job 10:17 witness against me; My leanness rises up against me And bears witness to my face.
9 Job 10:16, 17; 19:11; Hos. 6:1 He tears me in His wrath, and hates me; He gnashes at me with His teeth; Job 13:24; 33:10 My adversary sharpens His gaze on me.
10 They Ps. 22:13; 35:21 gape at me with their mouth, They Is. 50:6; Lam. 3:30; Mic. 5:1; Matt. 26:67; Mark 14:65; Luke 22:63; Acts 23:2 strike me reproachfully on the cheek, They gather together against me.
11 God Job 1:15, 17 has delivered me to the ungodly, And turned me over to the hands of the wicked.
12 I was at ease, but He has Job 9:17 shattered me; He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces; He has Job 7:20; Lam. 3:12 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 wound upon wound; He runs at me like a warrior.
15 “I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, And Job 30:19; Ps. 7:5 laid my head in 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 Job 27:9; (Ps. 66:18) let my cry have no resting place!
19 Surely even now Gen. 31:50; Rom. 1:9; Phil. 1:8;1 Thess. 2:5 my witness is in heaven, And my evidence is on high.
20 My friends scorn me; My eyes pour out tears to God.
21 Job 31:35; Eccl. 6:10; (Is. 45:9; Rom. 9:20) Oh, that one might plead for a man with God, As a man pleads for his neighbor!
22 For when a few years are finished, I shall Job 10:21; Eccl. 12:5 go the way of no return.