Job Reproaches His Pitiless Friends
1 Then Job answered and said:
2 "I have heard many such things;
Job 13:4; 21:34Miserable 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. 27:39shake my head at you;
5 But I would strengthen you with my mouth,
And the comfort of my lips would relieve yourgrief.
6 "Though I speak, my grief is not relieved;
And if I remain silent, how am I eased?
7 But now He has Job 7:3worn me out;
You Job 16:20; 19:13–15have made desolate all my company.
8 You have shriveled me up,
And it is a Job 10:17witness againstme;
My leanness rises up against me
And bears witness to my face.
9 Job 10:16, 17; 19:11; Hos. 6:1He tears me in His wrath, and hates me;
He gnashes at me with His teeth;
Job 13:24; 33:10My adversary sharpens His gaze on me.
10 They Ps. 22:13; 35:21gape 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 23:2strike me reproachfully on the cheek,
They gather together against me.
11 God Job 1:15, 17has delivered me to the ungodly,
And turned me over to the hands of the wicked.
12 I was at ease, but He has Job 9:17shattered me;
He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces;
He has Job 7:20; Lam. 3:12set 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. 7:5laid 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. 2:5my 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. 12:5go the way of no return.