Job Says Friends Are Miserable Comforters

² “I have heard many things like these;

^[a]Miserable comforters are you all!

³ Is there no end to windy words?

Or what provokes you that you answer?

⁴ I too could speak like you,

If only ^[b]I were in your place.

I could compose words against you

And shake my head at you.

⁵ Or I could strengthen you with my mouth,

And the condolence of my lips could lessen your pain.

Job Says God Shattered Him

⁶ “If I speak, my pain is not lessened,

And if I refrain, what pain leaves me?

⁷ But now He has exhausted me;

You have laid waste all my group of loved ones.

⁸ And you have shriveled me up,

^[c]It has become a witness;

And my infirmity rises up against me,

It testifies to my face.

⁹ His anger has torn me and ^[d]hunted me down,

He has gnashed at me with His teeth;

My enemy ^[e]glares at me.

¹⁰ They have gaped at me with their mouths,

They have ^[f]slapped me on the cheek with contempt;

They have massed themselves against me.

¹¹ God hands me over to criminals,

And tosses me into the hands of the wicked.

¹² I was at ease, but He shattered me,

And He has grasped me by my neck and shaken me to pieces;

He has also set me up as His target.

¹³ His arrows surround me.

He splits my kidneys open without mercy;

He pours out my bile on the ground.

¹⁴ He breaks through me with breach after breach;

He runs at me like a warrior.

¹⁵ I have sewed sackcloth over my skin,

And thrust my horn in the dust.

¹⁶ My face is flushed from weeping,

And deep darkness is on my eyelids,

¹⁷ Although there is no violence in my hands,

And my prayer is pure.