Job 16 - Amplified Bible(AMP)

Job Says Friends Are Sorry Comforters

1Then Job answered and said,

2“I have heard many such things;

Wearisome and miserable comforters are you all.

3“Is there no end to words of wind?

Or what plagues you that you answer?

4“I also could speak like you,

If you were in my place;

I could compose and join words together against you

And shake my head at you.

5“[But instead] I could strengthen and encourage you with my mouth,

And the consolation and solace of my lips would soothe your suffering and lessen your anguish.

Job Says God Shattered Him

6¶“If I speak, my pain is not relieved;

And if I refrain, what leaves me?

7“But now God has exhausted me.

You have destroyed all my family and my household.

8“You have taken a firm hold on me and have shriveled me up,

It has become a witness;

And my leanness rises up against me,

It testifies to my face.

9“His wrath has torn me and hunted me down,

He has gnashed at me with his teeth;

My adversary sharpens His gaze and glares at me.

10“They have gaped at me with their mouths,

With contempt they have struck me on the cheek;

They massed themselves together against me.

11“God hands me over to criminals

And tosses me into the hands of the wicked.

12“I was at ease, but He crushed me and broke me apart,

And He has seized me by the neck and has shaken me to pieces;

He has also set me up as His target.

13“His arrows surround me.

He pierces my kidneys (vital organs) without mercy;

He pours out my gall on the ground.

14“He attacks me, making wound after wound;

He runs at me like a warrior.

15“I have sewed sackcloth over my skin

And have defiled my horn (symbol of strength) in the dust.

16“My face is red and swollen with weeping,

And on my eyelids is the shadow of death,

17Although there is no violence or wrongdoing in my hands,

And my prayer is pure.

18¶“O earth, do not cover my blood,

And let there be no place for my cry.

19“Even now, behold, my Witness is in heaven,

And my Advocate is on high.

20“My friends are scoffers;

My eye pours out tears to God.

21“Oh, that a man would mediate and plead with God

Just as a man with his neighbor and friend.

22“For when a few years are past,

I shall go the way of no return.