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