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Job Decries His Comforters

¹ Then Job answered:² “I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all.³ Is there no end to your long-winded speeches? What provokes you to continue testifying?⁴ I could also speak like you if you were in my place; I could heap up words against you and shake my head at you.⁵ But I would encourage you with my mouth, and the consolation of my lips would bring relief.

⁶ Even if I speak, my pain is not relieved, and if I hold back, how will it go away?⁷ Surely He has now exhausted me; You have devastated all my family.⁸ You have bound me, and it has become a witness; my frailty rises up and testifies against me.⁹ His anger has torn me and hated me; He gnashes His teeth at me. My adversary pierces me with His eyes.¹⁰ They open their mouths against me and strike my cheeks with contempt; they join together against me.¹¹ God has delivered me to unjust men; He has thrown me to the clutches of the wicked.¹² I was at ease, but He shattered me; He seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has set me up as His target;¹³ His archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my gall on the ground.¹⁴ He breaks me with wound upon wound; He rushes me like a warrior.¹⁵ I have sewn sackcloth over my skin; I have buried my horn in the dust.¹⁶ My face is red with weeping, and deep shadows ring my eyes;

¹⁷ yet my hands are free of violence and my prayer is pure.¹⁸ O earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry for help never be laid to rest.¹⁹ Even now my witness is in heaven, and my advocate is on high!²⁰ My friends are my scoffers as my eyes pour out tears to God.²¹ Oh, that a man might plead with God as he pleads with his neighbor!²² For when only a few years are past I will go the way of no return.