Job 16
16
Job Answers Eliphaz
1Then Job answered:
2“I have heard many things like these.
You are all painful comforters!
3Will your long-winded speeches never end?
What makes you keep on arguing?
4I also could speak as you do
if you were in my place.
I could make great speeches against you
and shake my head at you.
5But, instead, I would encourage you,
and my words would bring you relief.
6“Even if I speak, my pain is not less,
and if I don’t speak, it still does not go away.
7God, you have surely taken away my strength
and destroyed my whole family.
8You have made me thin and weak,
and this shows I have done wrong.
9God attacks me and tears me with anger;
he grinds his teeth at me;
my enemy stares at me with his angry eyes.
10People open their mouths to make fun of me
and hit my cheeks to insult me.
They join together against me.
11God has turned me over to evil people
and has handed me over to the wicked.
12Everything was fine with me,
but God broke me into pieces;
he held me by the neck and crushed me.
He has made me his target;
13his archers surround me.
He stabs my kidneys without mercy;
he spills my blood on the ground.
14Again and again God attacks me;
he runs at me like a soldier.
15“I have sewed rough cloth over my skin to show my sadness
and have buried my face in the dust.
16My face is red from crying;
I have dark circles around my eyes.
17Yet my hands have never done anything cruel,
and my prayer is pure.
18“Earth, please do not cover up my blood.
Don’t let my cry ever stop being heard!
19Even now I have one who speaks for me in heaven;
the one who is on my side is high above.
20The one who speaks for me is my friend.
My eyes pour out tears to God.
21He begs God on behalf of a human
as a person begs for his friend.
22“Only a few years will pass
before I go on the journey of no return.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version, Copyright © 2005 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.