## Troublesome Comforters 

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Then Job answered and said, 

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"I have heard many such things; Troublesome comforters are you all. 

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Is there _no_ end to windy words? Or what pains you that you answer? 

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I too could speak like you, If your soul was in the place of my soul. I could compose words against you And shake my head at you. 

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I could encourage you with my mouth, And the solace of my lips could lessen _your pain_. 

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"If I speak, my pain is not lessened, And if I cease, what will go forth from me? 

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But now He has exhausted me; You have made desolate all my company. 

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You have shriveled me up, It has become a witness; And my leanness rises up against me, It answers to my face. 

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His anger has torn me and hunted me down; He has gnashed at me with His teeth; My adversary sharpens his eyes _to look_ at me. 

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They have opened their mouth wide at me; They have struck me on the cheek in reproach; They have massed themselves against me. 

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God hands me over to ruffians And tosses me into the hands of the wicked. 

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I was at ease, but He shattered me, And He has grasped me by the neck and shaken me to pieces; He has also set me up as His target. 

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His arrows surround me. Without mercy He splits my kidneys open; He pours out my gall on the ground. 

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He breaks through me with breach after breach; He runs at me like a warrior. 

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I have sewed sackcloth over my skin And thrust my horn in the dust. 

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My face is flushed from weeping, And the shadow of death is on my eyelids, 

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_Why_?--because there is no violence in my hands, And my prayer is pure. 

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"O earth, do not cover my blood, And let there be no _resting_ place for my cry. 

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Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, And my advocate is on high. 

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My friends are my scoffers; My eye weeps to God. 

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O that a man might argue with God As a man with his neighbor! 

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For when a few years are past, I shall go the way of no return.