1 ¶ Then Job answered and said,

2 I have heard all of these things before: you are all pathetic comforters.

3 Will this worthless talk ever end? what is driving you to answer?

4 I could also speak as you do: 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 things I say would soothe your grief.

6 ¶ When I speak, my suffering is not soothed: and when I stop, it is not eased?

7 But now God has made me weary: you have made my entire family desolate.

8 And you have shriveled me up, which is a witness against me: and my leanness testifies to my face against me.

9 My adversary has torn me in his wrath: he hates me and gnashes his teeth against me; my enemy pierces me with his eyes.

10 They have gaped at me with their mouths; they have reproachfully struck me on the cheek; they have united against me.

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

12 I was at ease, but he has shattered me: he seized me by my neck, and dashed me to pieces, and made me his target.

13 His archers surround me, he slashes open my vitals, without mercy; he pours out my gall upon the ground.

14 He breaks me with wound after wound, he runs at me like a giant.

15 I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and laid my pride in the dust.

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

17 ¶ Although my hands are not guilty of crime: and my prayer is pure.

18 O earth, do not cover up my blood, and let my cry have no resting place.

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

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

21 O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor!

22 When a few years have passed, then I will go the way of no return.