Job 16 :: New King James Version (NKJV)

Job Reproaches His Pitiless Friends

Job Shames His Unsympathetic Friends

Job 16:1

Job 16:1Then Job answered and said:

Job 16:2

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

Job 16:3

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

Job 16:4

Job 16:4I also could speak as you do,
If your soul were in my soul’s place.
I could heap up words against you,
And shake my head at you;

Job 16:5

Job 16:5But I would strengthen you with my mouth,
And the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief.

Job 16:6

Job 16:6“Though I speak, my grief is not relieved;
And if I remain silent, how am I eased?

Job 16:7

Job 16:7But now He has worn me out;
You have made desolate all my company.

Job 16:8

Job 16:8You have shriveled me up,
And it is a witness against me;
My leanness rises up against me
And bears witness to my face.

Job 16:9

Job 16:9He tears me in His wrath, and hates me;
He gnashes at me with His teeth;
My adversary sharpens His gaze on me.

Job 16:10

Job 16:10They gape at me with their mouth,
They strike me reproachfully on the cheek,
They gather together against me.

Job 16:11

Job 16:11God has delivered me to the ungodly,
And turned me over to the hands of the wicked.

Job 16:12

Job 16:12I was at ease, but He has shattered me;
He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces;
He has set me up for His target,

Job 16:13

Job 16:13His archers surround me.
He pierces my heart[fn] and does not pity;
He pours out my gall on the ground.

Job 16:14

Job 16:14He breaks me with wound upon wound;
He runs at me like a warrior.[fn]

Job 16:15

Job 16:15“I have sewn sackcloth over my skin,
And laid my head[fn] in the dust.

Job 16:16

Job 16:16My face is flushed from weeping,
And on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

Job 16:17

Job 16:17Although no violence is in my hands,
And my prayer is pure.

Job 16:18

Job 16:18“O earth, do not cover my blood,
And let my cry have no resting place!

Job 16:19

Job 16:19Surely even now my witness is in heaven,
And my evidence is on high.

Job 16:20

Job 16:20My friends scorn me;
My eyes pour out tears to God.

Job 16:21

Job 16:21Oh, that one might plead for a man with God,
As a man pleads for his neighbor!

Job 16:22

Job 16:22For when a few years are finished,
I shall go the way of no return.

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

NKJV Footnotes

(16:13)

Literally kidneys

(16:14)

Vulgate reads giant.

(16:15)

Literally horn

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