Old Testament · Poetry and wisdom

Job chapter 16

Then Job answered:I have heard all of this before, and plenty more like it. , every one of you — and every word you bring .Is there no end to your ? What sickness goads you into answering?I could talk the way you talk, if you were the one standing where I stand. I could stitch fine speeches together against you and shake my head over you.But my mouth would put strength in you, and the movement of my lips would hold your pain back.If I speak, the pain is not held back. If I say nothing, how much of it leaves me?He has worn me down to nothing. You have wiped out .You have shriveled me up, and the shriveling stands as a . My wasted body rises against me and to my face.His anger tore at me and would not let the grudge go. He ground his teeth at me. sharpens his eyes on me.They open their mouths wide at me. They slap my face to shame me. They mass together and close in.God turns me over to the crooked. He throws me into the hands of .I was at ease, and he broke me apart. He took me by the neck and shook me to pieces. He stood me up as his target.His archers ring me around. He splits open and spares nothing — he pours my gall out on the ground.He breaks through me, . He storming a wall.I have sewn over my skin, and driven down into the dust.My face is red and swollen from crying, and lies on my eyelids.And there is no violence on my hands. My prayer is clean.Earth, . Let my cry never find a place to lie down.Even now — look — my witness is in heaven. is up in the heights.My friends while my eyes drip tears toward God.Let someone against God the way a person argues for his friend.Because the years I have left can be counted, and then I go down the road I do not come back from.