Job 16 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

Job Replies: Miserable Comforters Are You

Job 16:1Then Job answered and said:

Job 16:2“I have heard many such things;
miserable comforters are you all.

Job 16:3Shall windy words have an end?
Or what provokes you that you answer?

Job 16:4I also could speak as you do,
if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you
and shake my head at you.

Job 16:5

Job 16:5I could strengthen you with my mouth,
and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.

Job 16:6

Job 16:6“If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?

Job 16:7

Job 16:7Surely now God has worn me out;
he has[fn] made desolate all my company.

Job 16:8

Job 16:8And he has shriveled me up,
which is a witness against me,
and my leanness has risen up against me;
it testifies to my face.

Job 16:9

Job 16:9He has torn me in his wrath and hated me;
he has gnashed his teeth at me;
my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.

Job 16:10

Job 16:10Men have gaped at me with their mouth;
they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
they mass themselves together against me.

Job 16:11

Job 16:11God gives me up to the ungodly
and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

Job 16:12

Job 16:12I was at ease, and he broke me apart;
he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his target;

Job 16:13

Job 16:13his archers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare;
he pours out my gall on the ground.

Job 16:14

Job 16:14He breaks me with breach upon breach;
he runs upon me like a warrior.

Job 16:15

Job 16:15I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin
and have laid my strength in the dust.

Job 16:16

Job 16:16My face is red with weeping,
and on my eyelids is deep darkness,

Job 16:17

Job 16:17although there is no violence in my hands,
and my prayer is pure.

Job 16:18

Job 16:18“O earth, cover not my blood,
and let my cry find no resting place.

Job 16:19

Job 16:19Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,
and he who testifies for me is on high.

Job 16:20

Job 16:20My friends scorn me;
my eye pours out tears to God,

Job 16:21

Job 16:21that he would argue the case of a man with God,
as[fn] a son of man does with his neighbor.

Job 16:22

Job 16:22For when a few years have come
I shall go the way from which I shall not return.

See the ESV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

ESV Footnotes

(16:7)

Hebrew you have; also verse 8

(16:21)

Hebrew and

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