✧Then 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.