Job 16

English Standard Version Anglicised

² “I have heard ^(A)many such things;
    ^(B)miserable comforters are you all.
³ Shall ^(C)windy words have an end?
    Or what provokes you that you answer?
⁴ I also could speak as you do,
    if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you
    and ^(D)shake my head at you.
⁵ I could strengthen you with my mouth,
    and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.
⁶ “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
    and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
⁷ Surely now God has worn me out;
    ^(E)he has^[a] made desolate all my company.
⁸ And he has shrivelled me up,
    which is ^(F)a witness against me,
and my ^(G)leanness has risen up against me;
    it testifies to my face.
⁹ He has ^(H)torn me in his wrath ^(I)and hated me;
    he has ^(J)gnashed his teeth at me;
    my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
¹⁰ Men have ^(K)gaped at me with their mouth;
    they have ^(L)struck me insolently on the cheek;
    they ^(M)mass themselves together against me.
¹¹ God gives me up to the ungodly
    and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
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 ^(N)target;
¹³     his ^(O)archers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys ^(P)and does not spare;
    he ^(Q)pours out my gall on the ground.
¹⁴ He breaks me with ^(R)breach upon breach;
    he ^(S)runs upon me like a warrior.
¹⁵ I have sewed ^(T)sackcloth upon my skin
    and have laid ^(U)my strength ^(V)in the dust.
¹⁶ My face is red with weeping,
    and on my eyelids is ^(W)deep darkness,
¹⁷ although there is no ^(X)violence in my hands,
    and my prayer is pure.
¹⁸ “O earth, ^(Y)cover not my blood,
    and let my ^(Z)cry find no resting-place.
¹⁹ Even now, behold, my ^(AA)witness is in heaven,
    and he who testifies for me is ^(AB)on high.
²⁰ My friends ^(AC)scorn me;
    my eye pours out tears to God,
²¹ that he would ^(AD)argue the case of a man with God,
    as^[b] a son of man does with his neighbour.
²² For when a few years have come
    I shall go the way ^(AE)from which I shall not return.