English Standard Version

New Living Translation

Job Replies: Miserable Comforters Are You

Then Job answered and said:

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Job’s Fifth Speech: A Response to Eliphaz

Then Job spoke again:

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“I have heard many such things;
miserable comforters are you all.

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“I have heard all this before.
What miserable comforters you are!

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Shall windy words have an end?
Or what provokes you that you answer?

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Won’t you ever stop blowing hot air?
What makes you keep on talking?

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I also could speak as you do,
if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you
and shake my head at you.

4

I could say the same things if you were in my place.
I could spout off criticism and shake my head at you.

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I could strengthen you with my mouth,
and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.

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But if it were me, I would encourage you.
I would try to take away your grief.

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“If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?

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Instead, I suffer if I defend myself,
and I suffer no less if I refuse to speak.

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Surely now God has worn me out;
he hasa made desolate all my company.

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“O God, you have ground me down
and devastated my family.

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And he has shriveled me up,
which is a witness against me,
and my leanness has risen up against me;
it testifies to my face.

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As if to prove I have sinned, you’ve reduced me to skin and bones.
My gaunt flesh testifies against me.

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He has torn me in his wrath and hated me;
he has gnashed his teeth at me;
my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.

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God hates me and angrily tears me apart.
He snaps his teeth at me
and pierces me with his eyes.

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Men have gaped at me with their mouth;
they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
they mass themselves together against me.

10

People jeer and laugh at me.
They slap my cheek in contempt.
A mob gathers against me.

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God gives me up to the ungodly
and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

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God has handed me over to sinners.
He has tossed me into the hands of the wicked.

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I was at ease, and he broke me apart;
he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his target;

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“I was living quietly until he shattered me.
He took me by the neck and broke me in pieces.
Then he set me up as his target,

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his archers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare;
he pours out my gall on the ground.

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and now his archers surround me.
His arrows pierce me without mercy.
The ground is wet with my blood.a

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He breaks me with breach upon breach;
he runs upon me like a warrior.

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Again and again he smashes against me,
charging at me like a warrior.

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I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin
and have laid my strength in the dust.

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I wear burlap to show my grief.
My pride lies in the dust.

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My face is red with weeping,
and on my eyelids is deep darkness,

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My eyes are red with weeping;
dark shadows circle my eyes.

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although there is no violence in my hands,
and my prayer is pure.

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Yet I have done no wrong,
and my prayer is pure.

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“O earth, cover not my blood,
and let my cry find no resting place.

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“O earth, do not conceal my blood.
Let it cry out on my behalf.

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Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,
and he who testifies for me is on high.

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Even now my witness is in heaven.
My advocate is there on high.

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My friends scorn me;
my eye pours out tears to God,

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My friends scorn me,
but I pour out my tears to God.

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that he would argue the case of a man with God,
asb a son of man does with his neighbor.

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I need someone to mediate between God and me,
as a person mediates between friends.

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For when a few years have come
I shall go the way from which I shall not return.

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For soon I must go down that road
from which I will never return.

Parallel

English Standard Version

New Living Translation

Job 16

Job 16