16:1 Then Job answered and said: 16:2 "I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all. 16:3 Shall windy words have an end Or what provokes you that you answer 16:4 I also could speak as you do, if you were in my place; I could join words together against you and shake my head at you. 16:5 I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain. 16:6 "If I speak, my pain is not assuaged, and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me 16:7 Surely now God has worn me out; he has made desolate all my company. 16:8 And he has shriveled me up, which is a witness against me, and my leanness has risen up against me; it testifies to my face. 16:9 He has torn me in his wrath and hated me; he has gnashed his teeth at me; my adversary sharpens his eyes against me. 16:10 Men have gaped at me with their mouth; they have struck me insolently on the cheek; they mass themselves together against me. 16:11 God gives me up to the ungodly and casts me into the hands of the wicked. 16:12 I was at ease, and he broke me apart; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces; he set me up as his target; 16:13 his archers surround me. He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare; he pours out my gall on the ground. 16:14 He breaks me with breach upon breach; he runs upon me like a warrior. 16:15 I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin and have laid my strength in the dust. 16:16 My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is deep darkness, 16:17 although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure. 16:18 "O earth, cover not my blood, and let my cry find no resting place. 16:19 Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he who testifies for me is on high. 16:20 My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God, 16:21 that he would argue the case of a man with God, as a son of man does with his neighbor. 16:22 For when a few years have come I shall go the way from which I shall not return.