Job 16

16 ¹Then Job answered: ²"I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all. ³Is there no end to your windy words? What provokes you that you keep on answering? ⁴I also could speak as you do, if you were in my place; I could string words together against you and shake my head at you. ⁵But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the comfort of my lips would ease your pain. ⁶If I speak, my pain is not eased; and if I hold back, what leaves me? ⁷Surely now God has worn me out; you have devastated all my company. ⁸You have shriveled me up, and it has become a witness; my gauntness rises up against me and testifies to my face. ⁹His anger has torn me and assailed me; he has gnashed his teeth at me; my adversary fixes his eyes on me. ¹⁰Men have gaped at me with their mouths; they have struck my cheek in scorn; they band together against me. ¹¹God hands me over to the unjust and casts me into the grip of the wicked. ¹²I was at ease, and he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces; he has set me up as his target. ¹³His archers surround me; he slashes open my kidneys without mercy and pours my gall on the ground. ¹⁴He breaks me with blow after blow; he rushes at me like a warrior. ¹⁵I have sewn mourning clothes over my skin and buried my brow in the dust. ¹⁶My face is flushed from weeping, and deep shadow lies on my eyelids, ¹⁷though there is no violence in my hands and my prayer is pure. ¹⁸Earth, do not cover my blood, and let my cry find no resting place. ¹⁹Even now, my witness is in heaven, and my advocate is on high. ²⁰My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God, ²¹that he would plead the case of a man before God, as a son of man pleads for his neighbor. ²²For only a few years will pass, and then I will go the way of no return."