Dual Panel1Then Job spoke again:
2"I have heard all this before. What miserable comforters you are!
3Won’t you ever stop your flow of foolish words? What have I said that makes you speak so endlessly?
4I could say the same things if you were in my place. I could spout off my criticisms against you and shake my head at you.
5But that’s not what I would do. I would speak in a way that helps you. I would try to take away your grief.
6But as it is, my grief remains no matter how I defend myself. And it does not help if I refuse to speak.
7"O God, you have ground me down and devastated my family.
8You have reduced me to skin and bones––as proof, they say, of my sins.
9God hates me and tears angrily at my flesh. He gnashes 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 broke me apart. He took me by the neck and dashed me to pieces. Then he set me up as his target.
13His archers surrounded me, and his arrows pierced me without mercy. The ground is wet with my blood.
14Again and again he smashed me, charging at me like a warrior.
15Here I sit in sackcloth. I have surrendered, and I sit in the dust.
16My eyes are red with weeping; darkness covers my eyes.
17Yet I am innocent, 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.
21Oh, that someone would 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.