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Job 16
Then Job answered and said,
2 I have heard many such things:
Miserable comforters are you all.
3 Shall vain words have an end?
Or what provokes you that you answer?
4 I also could speak as you do; If your soul were in my soul’s place,
I could join words together against you, And shake my head at you.
5 But I would strengthen you with my mouth,
And the solace of my lips would assuage your grief.
6 Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged;
And though I forbear, what am I eased?
7 But now he has made me weary:
You have made desolate all my company.
8 And you have laid fast hold on me, which is a witness against me:
And my leanness rises up against me, It testifies to my face.
9 He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me;
He has gnashed upon me with his teeth:
My adversary sharpens his eyes upon me.
10 They have gaped upon me with their mouth;
They have struck me upon the cheek reproachfully:
They gather themselves together against me.
11 El delivers me to the lawless,
And casts me into the hands of the wicked.
12 I was at ease, and he broke me asunder;
Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces:
He has also set me up for his mark.
13 His archers compass me all around;
He cleaves my reins asunder, and does not spare;
He pours out my gall upon the ground.
14 He breaks me with breach upon breach;
He runs upon me like a giant.
15 I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin,
And have laid my horn in the dust.
16 My face is red with weeping,
And on my eyelids is the shadow of death;
17 Although there is no violence in my hands,
And my prayer is pure.
18 O earth, cover not my blood,
And let my cry have no resting-place.
19 Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,
And he that vouches for me is on high.
20 My friends scoff at me:
But my eye pours out tears to Eloah.
21 That one might plead for a man with Eloah as a son of man pleads for his neighbor!
22 For when a few years are come,
I shall go the way where I shall not return.
Job 17
My spirit is consumed, my days are extinct,
The grave is ready for me.
2 Surely there are mockers with me,
And my eye dwells upon their provocation.
3 Give now a pledge, be surety for me with yourself;
Who is there that will strike hands with me?
4 For you have hid their heart from understanding:
Therefore shall you not exalt them.
5 He that denounces his friends for a prey,
Even the eyes of his children shall fail.
6 But he has made me a byword of the people;
And they spit in my face.
7 My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow,
And all my members are as a shadow.
8 Upright men shall be astonished at this,
And the innocent shall stir up himself against the lawless.
9 Yet shall the righteous hold on his way,
And he that has clean hands shall become stronger and stronger.
10 But as for you all, come on now again;
And I shall not find a wise man among you.
11 My days are past, my purposes are broken off,
Even the thoughts of my heart.
12 They change the night into day:
the light, say they, is near to the darkness.
13 If I look for Sheol as my house;
If I have spread my couch in the darkness;
14 If I have said to corruption, You are my father;
To the worm, You are my mother, and my sister;
15 Where then is my hope?
And as for my hope, who shall see it?
16 It shall go down to the bars of Sheol,
When once there is rest in the dust.
Job 18
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
2 How long will you hunt for words?
Consider, and afterwards we will speak.
3 Why are we counted as beasts,
And have become unclean in your sight?
4 You that tear yourself in your anger,
Shall the earth be forsaken for you?
Or shall the rock be removed out of its place?
5 Yes, the light of the wicked shall be put out,
And the spark of his fire shall not shine.
6 The light shall be dark in his tent,
And his lamp above him shall be put out.
7 The steps of his strength shall be straitened,
And his own counsel shall cast him down.
8 For he is cast into a net by his own feet,
And he walks upon the toils.
9 A gin shall take him by the heel,
And a snare shall lay hold on him.
10 A noose is hid for him in the ground,
And a trap for him in the way.
11 Terrors shall make him afraid on every side,
And shall chase him at his heels.
12 His strength shall be hungered,
And calamity shall be ready at his side.
13 The members of his body shall be devoured,
Yes, the first-born of death shall devour his members.
14 He shall be rooted out of his tent in which he trusted;
and he shall be brought to the king of terrors.
15 There shall dwell in his tent that which is none of his:
Brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.
16 His roots shall be dried up beneath,
And above shall his branch be cut off.
17 His remembrance shall perish from the earth,
And he shall have no name in the street.
18 He shall be driven from light into darkness,
And chased out of the world.
19 He shall have neither son nor kinsman among his people,
Nor any remaining where he sojourned.
20 They that come after shall be astonished at his day,
As they that went before were frightened.
21 Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous,
And this is the place of him that knows not El.
