King James Bible

New Living Translation

Job: Poor 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 ye all.

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

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Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?

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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 ye do: if your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.

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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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But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.

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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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Though I speak, my grief is not asswaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased?

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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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But now he hath made me weary: thou hast 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 thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness 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 teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon 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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They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me.

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

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God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over 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, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark.

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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 compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon 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 breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant.

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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 defiled my horn 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 foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

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

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Not for any injustice in mine hands: also 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 thou my blood, and let my cry have no place.

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

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Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record 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: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God.

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

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O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!

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

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When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.

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

Parallel

King James Bible

New Living Translation

Job 16

Job 16