The Shared Word Translation · Study & Discuss
Job 16
Miserable Comforters Are You All
Then Job answered and said:
“I have heard many things like these.
Miserable comforters are you all.
Is there an end to words of wind?
Or what provokes you that you answer?
I also could speak as you do
if your life were in place of my life.
I could compose words against you
and shake my head at you.
I would strengthen you with my mouth,
and the movement of my lips
would bring relief.
God Has Worn Me Out
If I speak, my pain is not restrained;
and if I stop, what departs from me?
But now he has worn me out.
You have made all my company desolate.
You have shriveled me,
and it has become a witness.
My leanness rises against me
and testifies to my face.
He tears me in his anger and hates me;
he gnashes his teeth at me.
My adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
They open their mouths against me;
they strike my cheek with contempt;
they gather together against me.
God gives me over to unjust men
and throws me into the hands of the wicked.
He Shattered Me Again and Again
I was at ease, and he shattered me;
he seized me by the neck and crushed me.
He set me up as his target.
His archers surround me.
He splits open my kidneys and does not spare;
he pours my gall upon the ground.
He breaks me breach upon breach;
he runs upon me like a warrior.
I have sewn sackcloth over my skin
and thrust my horn into the dust.
My face is red from weeping,
and death-shadow is upon my eyelids,
though there is no violence in my hands,
and my prayer is pure.
Earth, Do Not Cover My Blood
Earth, do not cover my blood,
and let there be no resting place for my cry.
Even now, look, my witness is in heaven,
and the one who testifies for me is on high.
My friends scorn me;
my eye pours tears to God,
that one might argue for a man with God,
as a son of man for his neighbor.
For when a few years have come,
I will go the way
from which I will not return.”