1Then Job answered and said, 2“I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all! 3Is there an end to your vain words? Or what emboldens you that you answer? 4I could also speak as you do, if your soul were in my soul's place. I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you. 5But instead, I would strengthen and encourage you with my mouth, and should assuage your grief by the moving of my lips. 6Though I speak to you, my grief is not assuaged; and though I forbear, how am I comforted?

7“But now God has made me weary; You, O Lord, have devastated all my family. 8And You have filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me; and my leanness, rising up in me, bears witness of my guilt to my face. 9He tears me in His wrath, Who hates me; He gnashes upon me with His teeth; my Enemy sharpens His gazes 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 has delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. 12I was at ease, but He has broken me apart; He has also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for His target. 13His archers surround me, He cleaves my kidneys asunder, and does not spare; He pours out my gall upon the ground. 14He breaks me with wound after wound; He runs at me like a giant. 15I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust. 16My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; 17Yet not for any violence on my part. Also, my prayer is pure.

18“O earth, do not cover my blood, and let my cry have no resting place. 19Also now, behold, my advocate who witnesses of my record on my behalf is on high in heaven. 20My friends scorn me; but my eye pours out tears to God. 21O that a man might plead for me with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor!

22“When a few years have passed, then I shall go the way from which I shall not return.