1Then Job answered and said:
2"I have heard many things like this. You are all miserable comforters."
3Will empty words never end? What makes you so bold to answer as you do?
4I also could speak as you do. If you were in my place, I could pile up words against you, and shake my head at you.
5But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the words of my lips would ease your grief.
6Though I speak, my grief is not eased. And though I keep silent, what relief do I get?
7But now he has worn me out. You have left all my company desolate.
8You have filled me with wrinkles, and they are a witness against me. My thin, wasted body rises up and testifies against me.
9He tears me in his anger; he hates me. He grinds his teeth at me. My enemy fixes his sharp eyes on me.
10They have opened their mouths wide at me. They have struck me on the cheek to shame me. They have gathered themselves together against me.
11God has handed me over to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
12I was at ease, but he broke me in pieces. He took me by the neck and shook me to pieces, and set me up as his target.
13His archers surround me. He splits open my inward parts and does not spare. He pours out my gall on the ground.
14He breaks me with wound upon wound. He runs at me like a giant.
15I have sewn sackcloth on my skin, and laid my horn in the dust.
16My face is swollen with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death,
17though there is no injustice in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
18O earth, do not cover my blood, and let my cry have no resting place.
19Even now, look, my witness is in heaven, and the one who speaks for me is on high.
20My friends scorn me, but my eye pours out tears to God.
21If only someone might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbour.
22"For when a few years have passed, I shall go the way from which I shall not return."