1Then Job answered and said: 2I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all! 3Is there no end to windy words? What ails you that you answer thus? 4I also could speak as you do, if your soul were in the place of my soul. I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you. 5But I would assure you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips would be restrained. 6When I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I remain silent, how do I proceed? 7But now He has exhausted me; you have devastated my company. 8You have seized me as a witness; my deception rises up against me and testifies to my face. 9He tears me in His wrath, and hates me; He gnashes at me with His teeth; my adversary sharpens His eyes at me. 10They have gaped at me with their mouth, and struck me reproachfully on the cheek; they gather together against me. 11The Mighty God has delivered me to the perverse, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. 12I was at ease, but He has shattered me; He also has taken hold on my neck, and dashed me to pieces; He has set me up for His target. 13His archers surround me; He pierces my heart and does not pity; He pours out my gall on the ground. 14He breaks me with break upon break; He runs at me like a mighty man. 15I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and have thrust my horn into the dust. 16My face is flushed from weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; 17although no violence is in my hands, and my prayer is pure. 18O earth, do not cover my blood, and let my cry have no resting place! 19Even now, behold, my evidence is in Heaven, and my witness is on high. 20My friends scorn me; my eyes pour out tears to God. 21Oh, that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for the son of his friend! 22For when the number of years have come, I shall go the way from which I shall not return.