Chapter 16
Then Job answered and said,
2I have heard many such things:
miserable comforters are ye all.
3Shall vain words have an end?
or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?
4I also could speak as ye
do: if your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words
against you, and shake mine head at you.
5But I would strengthen
you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.
6Though I speak, my grief is not asswaged: and though I
forbear, what am I eased?
7But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made
desolate all my company.
8And thou hast filled me with wrinkles,
which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in
me beareth witness to my face.
9He teareth me in his wrath, who
hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes
upon me.
10They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me
upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against
me.
11God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the
hands of the wicked.
12I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he
hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up
for his mark.
13His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins
asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.
14He
breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant.
15I
have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.
16My
face is foul with weeping, and my eyelids is the shadow of death;
17Not
for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure.
18O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place.
19Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record
is on high.
20My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth
out tears unto God.
21Oh that one might plead for a man with God,
as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!
22When a few years are come,
then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.
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