Job Replies: Miserable Comforters Are You
“I have heard many things like these. You are all miserable comforters!
Do your empty words have an end? Or what compels you that you answer?
I also could speak like you do. If your soul were in my soul’s place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,
but instead I would strengthen you with my mouth. The solace of my lips would relieve you.
“Though I speak, my pain is not relieved. And if I hold back, what pain leaves me?
But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have devastated all my group of loved ones.
You have shriveled me up. It has become a witness against me. My infirmity rises up against me. It testifies to my face.
He has torn me in his wrath and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.
They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek with contempt. They have massed themselves together against me.
God delivers me to the ungodly and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target.
His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart and does not spare. He pours out my gall on the ground.
He breaks me with breach on breach. He runs at me like a warrior.
“I have sewed sackcloth over my skin and have thrust my horn into the dust.
My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids,
although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
“Earth, do not cover my blood, and may my cry have no resting place.
Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he who vouches for me is on high.
My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,
that he would maintain the right of a man with God, of a son of man with his neighbor!
For when a few years have come, I will go the way of no return.”