Job 13 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

My own eyes have seen every bit of this. My own ears heard it and worked it out.

Whatever you know, I know. I don't come up short next to any of you.

But it is the Almighty I want to speak to. It is God I want to argue this out with.

You three plaster lies over the truth. Every one of you is a doctor who cures nothing.

If only the three of you would shut your mouths completely. That would be the wisest thing you have done yet.

Now hear my argument. Pay attention to the case my own lips are making.

Are you going to speak crookedly on God's behalf? Are you going to lie for him?

Will you show him favoritism? Will you be the ones who argue God's side in court?

Would it go well for you if he examined you the way you are examining me? Can you trick him the way a man gets tricked?

He will put you in your place, absolutely he will, if you play favorites behind closed doors.

Won't the sheer weight of him terrify you? Won't the dread of him fall on you?

Your wise sayings are proverbs made of ash. Your defenses are walls of wet clay.

Be quiet and let me talk. Then let whatever is coming come.

Why do I carry my own flesh in my teeth and hold my life in my two hands?

Look — he may well kill me. I have nothing left to wait for. I am still going to defend the way I have lived, right to his face.

And that alone will be my rescue — no man with something to hide would come anywhere near him.

Listen. Listen closely to what I am about to say. Let my statement go all the way into your ears.

There — I have laid my case out in order. I know I will be found in the right.

Who is going to bring a charge against me? Because if anyone can make it stick, I will go quiet and die.

Only two things — don't do these to me, and then I won't hide from your face.

Take your hand off me, and stop terrifying me with your dread.

Then call, and I will answer. Or let me speak, and you answer me.

How many wrongs and failures do I actually have? Show me the rebellion. Show me where I failed.

Why do you hide your face from me and treat me like your enemy?

Are you really going to terrorize a leaf the wind is already carrying off? Are you going to run down a piece of dry straw?

Because you write bitter things in the record against me and hand me back the wrongs I did when I was young.

You lock my feet in wooden blocks. You watch every path I take. You scratch a line around the soles of my feet.

And a man wears through like something rotting, like a coat the moths have already eaten.