Job 16 · איוב

Then Iyyov answered and said,

I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are you all.

Shall windy words have an end? or what provokes thee that thou answerest?

Would I also speak as you do? if your soul were in my soul’s stead, would I join words together against you, and shake my head at you?

I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief.

Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased?

But now it has made me weary: Thou hast made desolate all my company.

And Thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up against me bears witness to my face.

He tears me in his wrath, and hates me: he gnashes at me with his teeth; my enemy sharpens his eyes upon me.

They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek scornfully; they gather themselves together against me.

God has delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.

I was at ease, but he broke me asunder: he has also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his target.

His archers compass me round about, he cleaves my reins asunder, and does not spare; he pours out my gall upon the ground.

He breaks me with breach upon breach, he runs upon me like a giant.

I have sewn sackcloth upon my skin, and have laid my horn in the dust.

My face is scalded with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

though no injustice is in my hands; and my prayer is pure.

O earth, cover not my blood, and let my cry have no pause.

Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my testimony is on high.

My friends scorn me: but my eye pours out tears to God.

O that a man might plead his cause with God, as the son of man with his fellow!

For when a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.