Job 16
16
Job’s Fifth Speech: A Response to Eliphaz
1Then Job spoke again:
2“I have heard all this before.
What miserable comforters you are!
3Won’t you ever stop blowing hot air?
What makes you keep on talking?
4I could say the same things if you were in my place.
I could spout off criticism and shake my head at you.
5But if it were me, I would encourage you.
I would try to take away your grief.
6Instead, I suffer if I defend myself,
and I suffer no less if I refuse to speak.
7“O God, you have ground me down
and devastated my family.
8As if to prove I have sinned, you’ve reduced me to skin and bones.
My gaunt flesh testifies against me.
9God hates me and angrily tears me apart.
He snaps his teeth at me
and pierces me with his eyes.
10People jeer and laugh at me.
They slap my cheek in contempt.
A mob gathers against me.
11God has handed me over to sinners.
He has tossed me into the hands of the wicked.
12“I was living quietly until he shattered me.
He took me by the neck and broke me in pieces.
Then he set me up as his target,
13and now his archers surround me.
His arrows pierce me without mercy.
The ground is wet with my blood.#16:13 Hebrew my gall.
14Again and again he smashes against me,
charging at me like a warrior.
15I wear burlap to show my grief.
My pride lies in the dust.
16My eyes are red with weeping;
dark shadows circle my eyes.
17Yet I have done no wrong,
and my prayer is pure.
18“O earth, do not conceal my blood.
Let it cry out on my behalf.
19Even now my witness is in heaven.
My advocate is there on high.
20My friends scorn me,
but I pour out my tears to God.
21I need someone to mediate between God and me,
as a person mediates between friends.
22For soon I must go down that road
from which I will never return.
Currently Selected:
Job 16: NLT
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Holy Bible, New Living Translation copyright 1996, 2004, 2007, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
For more information about the NLT:
Job 16
16
Job's Reply
1Then Job answered and said,
2I have heard many such things:
Miserable comforters are ye all.
3Shall vain words have an end?
Or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?
4I also could speak as ye do:
If your soul were in my soul's stead,
I could heap up words against you,
And shake mine head at you.
5 But I would strengthen you with my mouth,
And the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.
6Though I speak, my grief is not asswaged:
And though I forbear, what am I eased?
7But now he hath made me weary:
Thou hast made desolate all my company.
8And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me:
And my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face.
9He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me:
He gnasheth upon me with his teeth;
Mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.
10They have gaped upon me with their mouth;
They have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully;
They have gathered themselves together against me.
11God hath delivered me to the ungodly,
And turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
12I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder:
He hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces,
And set me up for his mark.
13His archers compass me round about,
He cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare;
He poureth out my gall upon the ground.
14He breaketh me with breach upon breach,
He runneth upon me like a giant.
15I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin,
And defiled my horn in the dust.
16My face is foul with weeping,
And on my eyelids is the shadow of death;
17Not for any injustice in mine hands:
Also my prayer is pure.
18O earth, cover not thou my blood,
And let my cry have no place.
19Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven,
And my record is on high.
20My friends scorn me:
but mine eye poureth out tears unto God.
21O that one might plead for a man with God,
As a man pleadeth for his neighbour!
22When a few years are come,
Then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Rights in the Authorized (King James) Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Published by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.
Learn More About King James Version