The Book of Job

And Job answered and said:

I have heard many such [things]. You [are] all miserable comforters.

[Is there] an end to windy words? Or what provokes you that you answer?

I also could speak as you. If your soul were in the place of my soul, I could bind words against you and shake at you with my head.

I might make you strong with my mouth, and the moving of my lips could spare you.

If I speak, my pain is not held back; and [though] I forbear, what ease do I get?

But now He has made me weary. You have made all my company desolate.

And You have plucked me; for it is a witness, and my failure rises up against me; and it answers to my face.

His anger has torn, and hated [me]; He gnashes at me with His teeth; my enemy sharpens His eyes at me.

They have gaped at me with their mouth, and scornfully struck my cheek; they gather themselves together against me.

God has delivered me to the perverse; and He has turned me over into the hands of the wicked.

I was at ease, but He has shattered me; yea, [He has] also taken hold on my neck and broken me to bits; and He has set me up as a target for Him.

His archers surround me; He splits my inward parts and has no pity; He pours out my gall on the ground

He breaks me with break on top of break; He runs on me like a warrior.

I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and I have thrust my horn in the dust.

My face is reddened from weeping; and the shadow of death [is] on my eyelids,

though no violence [is] in my hand, and my prayer [is] pure.

O earth, do not cover my blood, and let not my cry have a place.

Even now, behold! My witness [is] in Heaven; and He who testifies of me [is] on high.

My scorners [are] my friends; my eye pours out [tears] to God.

O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man [pleads] for his friend!

For years [few in] number will come; and I shall not return the way I shall go.