Job 16-18

1Then Job answered:

2“I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all.

3Is there no end to your long-winded speeches? What provokes you to continue testifying?

4I could also speak like you if you were in my place; I could heap up words against you and shake my head at you.

5But I would encourage you with my mouth, and the consolation of my lips would bring relief.

6Even if I speak, my pain is not relieved, and if I hold back, how will it go away?

7Surely He has now exhausted me; You have devastated all my family.

8You have bound me, and it has become a witness; my frailty rises up and testifies against me.

9His anger has torn me and opposed me; He gnashes His teeth at me. My adversary pierces me with His eyes.

10They open their mouths against me and strike my cheeks with contempt; they join together against me.

11God has delivered me to unjust men; He has thrown me to the clutches of the wicked.

12I was at ease, but He shattered me; He seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has set me up as His target;

13His archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my gall on the ground.

14He breaks me with wound upon wound; He rushes me like a mighty warrior.

15I have sewn sackcloth over my skin; I have buried my horn in the dust.

16My face is red with weeping, and deep shadows ring my eyes;

17yet my hands are free of violence and my prayer is pure.

18O earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry for help never be laid to rest.

19Even now my witness is in heaven, and my advocate is on high.

20My friends are my scoffers as my eyes pour out tears to God.

21Oh, that a man might plead with God as he pleads with his neighbor!

22For when only a few years are past I will go the way of no return.

1“My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; the grave awaits me.

2Surely mockers surround me, and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion.

3Give me, I pray, the pledge You demand. Who else will be my guarantor?

4You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore You will not exalt them.

5If a man denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children will fail.

6He has made me a byword among the people, a man in whose face they spit.

7My eyes have grown dim with grief, and my whole body is but a shadow.

8The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent are stirred against the godless.

9Yet a righteous one holds to his way, and the one with clean hands grows stronger.

10But come back and try again, all of you. For I will not find a wise man among you.

11My days have passed; my plans are broken off— even the desires of my heart.

12They have turned night into day, making light seem near in the face of darkness.

13If I look for Sheol as my home, if I spread out my bed in darkness,

14and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’

15where then is my hope? Who can see any hope for me?

16Will it go down to the gates of Sheol? Will we go down together into the dust?”

1Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:

2“How long until you end these speeches? Show some sense, and then we can talk.

3Why are we regarded as cattle, as stupid in your sight?

4You who tear yourself in anger— should the earth be forsaken on your account, or the rocks be moved from their place?

5Indeed, the lamp of the wicked is extinguished; the flame of his fire does not glow.

6The light in his tent grows dark, and the lamp beside him goes out.

7His vigorous stride is shortened, and his own schemes trip him up.

8For his own feet lead him into a net, and he wanders into its mesh.

9A trap seizes his heel; a snare grips him.

10A noose is hidden in the ground, and a trap lies in his path.

11Terrors frighten him on every side and harass his every step.

12His strength is depleted, and calamity is ready at his side.

13It devours patches of his skin; the firstborn of death devours his limbs.

14He is torn from the shelter of his tent and is marched off to the king of terrors.

15Fire resides in his tent; burning sulfur rains down on his dwelling.

16The roots beneath him dry up, and the branches above him wither away.

17The memory of him perishes from the earth, and he has no name in the land.

18He is driven from light into darkness and is chased from the inhabited world.

19He has no offspring or posterity among his people, no survivor where he once lived.

20Those in the west are appalled at his fate, while those in the east tremble in horror.

21Surely such is the dwelling of the wicked and the place of one who does not know God.”