Job reproaches his merciless friends
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And Job answers and says:
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“I have heard many such things, || Miserable comforters [are] you all.
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Is there an end to words of wind? Or what emboldens you that you answer?
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I also, like you, might speak, || If your soul were in my soul’s stead. I might join against you with words, || And nod at you with my head.
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I might harden you with my mouth, || And the moving of my lips might be sparing.
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If I speak, my pain is not restrained, || And I cease—what goes from me?
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Only, now, it has wearied me; You have desolated all my company,
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And You loathe me, || For it has been a witness, || And my failure rises up against me, || It testifies in my face.
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His anger has torn, and He hates me, || He has gnashed at me with His teeth, || My adversary sharpens His eyes for me.
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They have gaped on me with their mouth, || In reproach they have struck my cheeks, || Together they set themselves against me.
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God shuts me up to the perverse, || And turns me over to the hands of the wicked.
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I have been at ease, and He breaks me, || And He has laid hold on my neck, || And He breaks me in pieces, || And He raises me to Him for a mark.
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His archers go around against me. He split my reins, and does not spare, || He pours out my gall to the earth.
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He breaks me—breach on breach, || He runs on me as a mighty one.
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I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, || And have rolled my horn in the dust.
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My face is foul with weeping, || And on my eyelids [is] death-shade.
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Not for violence in my hands, || And my prayer [is] pure.
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O earth, do not cover my blood! And let there not be a place for my cry.
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Also, now, behold, my witness [is] in the heavens, || And my testifier in the high places.
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My interpreter [is] my friend, || My eye has dropped to God;
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And He reasons for a man with God, || As a son of man for his friend.
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When a few years come, || Then I go [on] the path of no return.”
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