Job

2 “I have heard plenty like that;

you are plaguy comforters all of you.

3 Is there any end to windy talk?

or what is galling you, that you answer?

4 I too might speak as you do

if your souls were in the place of mine;

I might string phrases together about you

and shake my head over you;

5* I might brace you up with my mouth,

and the comfort of my lips might check—

6 If I speak my pain is not checked,

and if I refrain what passes away from me?

7** He has just tired me out now;

you have laid all my company desolate,

8 And you have gripped me, it has become a witness,

and my leanness stands up against me, testifies to my face.

9* His anger tore me and flung me down;

he ground his teeth at me;

my foe sharpens his eyes for me.

10* They have opened their mouths at me,

insolently struck my cheeks,

collected in full force against me.

11 The Deity gives me up to a foul-player

and thrusts me into the hands of wrong-doers.

12 I was in quietness and he jerked me,

took me by the back of my neck and burst me,

And sets me up for his target,

13 his marksmen surround me,

And he cuts through my kidneys unsparingly,

lets my gall run out on the ground,

14 Wounds me with wound across wound,

runs at me like a warrior.

15 I have stitched a sackcloth on my hide

and run my horn into the clay,

16 My face is inflamed with weeping

and there is gloom over my eyelashes,—

17 For no violence that I have on my hands;

and my prayer is pure.

18 Earth, do not cover my blood,

and let there be no place for my outcry!

19 Even now my witness is there, in the heavens,

and I have my voucher aloft,

20* My friend is my interpreter;

to God my eye drips,

21 That he would arbitrate for a man with a God

and between a human being and his fellow.

22 For a few years are to come

and I shall go on the track I shall not come back on.