CPDV - Job - 16

16:1  Then Job, answering, said:

16:2  I have often heard such things; you are all aggravating comforters.

16:3  Will there be no end to windy words? Or is it at all a burden to you, if you speak?

16:4  I, too, can speak like you; and I also wish that your soul favored my soul.

16:5  I would also comfort you with speeches and would wag my head over you.

16:6  I would strengthen you with my mouth, and would move my lips, as if being lenient to you.

16:7  But what can I do? When I am speaking, my grief will not be quiet; and if I am quiet, it will not withdraw from me.

16:8  But now my grief has crushed me, and all my limbs have been reduced to nothing.

16:9  My wrinkles bear witness against me, and a liar rises up against my face, contradicting me.

16:10  He has gathered together his fury towards me, and, threatening me, he has roared against me with his teeth; my enemy has beheld me with terrible eyes.

16:11  They have opened their mouths against me, and, reproaching me, they have struck me on the cheek; they are nourished by my sufferings.

16:12  God has confined me with the immoral, and he has delivered me into the hands of the impious.

16:13  I, who once was wealthy, am now crushed. He has grabbed me by my neck; he has broken me and has placed me before him as a sign.

16:14  He has surrounded me with his lances. He has severely wounded my lower back, he has not been lenient, and he has poured out my organs upon the earth.

16:15  He has cut me with wound after wound. He has rushed upon me like a giant.

16:16  I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and I have covered my body with ashes.

16:17  My face is swollen from weeping, and my eyelids have dimmed my vision.

16:18  These things I have endured without iniquity in my hand, while I held pure prayers before God.

16:19  O earth, do not conceal my blood, nor let my outcry find a hiding place in you.

16:20  For behold, my witness is in heaven, and my confidante is on high.

16:21  My friends are full of words; my eye rains tears upon God.

16:22  And I wish that a man might be so judged before God, just as the son of man is judged with his assistant!

16:23  For behold, a few years pass by, and I am walking a path by which I will not return.