1. And Job answered and said:
2. I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters.
3. Is there an end to windy words? Or what provokes you that you answer?
4. I also could speak as you. If your soul were in the place of my soul, I could bind words against you and shake at you with my head.
5. I might make you strong with my mouth, and the moving of my lips could spare you.
6. If I speak, my pain is not held back; and though I forbear, what goes from me?
7. But now He has made me weary. You have made all my company desolate.
8. And You have plucked me; for it is a witness, and my failure rises up against me; and it answers to my face.
9. His anger has torn, and hated me; He gnashes at me with His teeth; my enemy sharpens His eyes at me.
10. They have gaped at me with their mouth, and scornfully struck my cheek; they gather themselves together against me.
11. God has delivered me to the perverse; and He has turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
12. I was at ease, but He has shattered me; yea, He has also taken hold on my neck and broken me to bits; and He has set me up as a target for Him.
13. His archers surround me; He splits my inward parts and has no pity; He pours out my gall on the ground.
14. He breaks me with break on top of break; He runs on me like a warrior.
15. I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and I have thrust my horn in the dust.
16. My face is reddened from weeping; and the shadow of death is on my eyelids,
17. though no violence is in my hand, and my prayer is pure.
18. O earth, do not cover my blood, and let not my cry have a place.
19. Even now, behold! My witness is in Heaven; and He who testifies of me is on high.
20. My scorners are my friends; my eye pours out tears to God.
21. O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his friend!
22. For years few in number will come; and I shall not return the way I shall go.