¹Then Job answered,

• ²“I have heard many such things.
• You are all miserable comforters!

• ³Shall vain words have an end?
• Or what provokes you that you answer?

• ⁴I also could speak as you do.
• If your soul were in my soul’s place,
• I could join words together against you,
• and shake my head at you,

• ⁵but I would strengthen you with my mouth.
• The solace of my lips would relieve you.

• ⁶“Though I speak, my grief is not subsided.
• Though I forbear, what am I eased?

• ⁷But now, God, you have surely worn me out.
• You have made desolate all my company.

• ⁸You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me.
• My leanness rises up against me.
• It testifies to my face.

• ⁹He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me.
• He has gnashed on me with his teeth.
• My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.

• ¹⁰They have gaped on me with their mouth.
• They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully.
• They gather themselves together against me.

• ¹¹God delivers me to the ungodly,
• and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

• ¹²I was at ease, and he broke me apart.
• Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces.
• He has also set me up for his target.

• ¹³His archers surround me.
• He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare.
• He pours out my gall on the ground.

• ¹⁴He breaks me with breach on breach.
• He runs on me like a giant.

• ¹⁵I have sewed sackcloth on my skin,
• and have thrust my horn in the dust.

• ¹⁶My face is red with weeping.
• Deep darkness is on my eyelids.

• ¹⁷Although there is no violence in my hands,
• and my prayer is pure.

• ¹⁸“Earth, don’t cover my blood.
• Let my cry have no place to rest.

• ¹⁹Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven.
• He who vouches for me is on high.

• ²⁰My friends scoff at me.
• My eyes pour out tears to God,

• ²¹that he would maintain the right of a man with God,
• of a son of man with his neighbor!

• ²²For when a few years have come,
• I shall go the way of no return.