Chapter 16

  Then Job answered and said,  

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  I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.  

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

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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 my head at you.  

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

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

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  But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company.  

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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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  He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; my enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.  

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  They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves 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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  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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  His archers encompass me; he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.  

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  He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant.  

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  I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.  

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  My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids are the shades of death;  

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  Not for any injustice in my hands: also 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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  Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high.  

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  My friends scorn me: but my eye poureth out tears to God.  

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

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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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