Chapter 16

  And Job answereth and saith: --  

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  I have heard many such things, Miserable comforters [are] ye all.  

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  Is there an end to words of wind? Or what doth embolden thee that thou answerest?  

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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 goeth from me?  

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  Only, now, it hath wearied me; Thou hast desolated all my company,  

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  And Thou dost loathe me, For a witness it hath been, And rise up against me doth my failure, In my face it testifieth.  

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  His anger hath torn, and he hateth me, He hath gnashed at me with his teeth, My adversary sharpeneth his eyes for me.  

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  They have gaped on me with their mouth, In reproach they have smitten my cheeks, Together against me they set themselves.  

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  God shutteth me up unto the perverse, And to the hands of the wicked turneth me over.  

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  At ease I have been, and he breaketh me, And he hath laid hold on my neck, And he breaketh me in pieces, And he raiseth me to him for a mark.  

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  Go round against me do his archers. He splitteth my reins, and spareth not, He poureth out to the earth my gall.  

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  He breaketh me -- breach upon breach, He runneth upon me as a mighty one.  

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  Sackcloth I have sewed on my skin, And have rolled in the dust my horn.  

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  My face is foul with weeping, And on mine 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 thou cover my blood! And let there not be a place for my cry.  

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  Also, now, lo, in the heavens [is] my witness, And my testifier in the high places.  

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  My interpreter [is] my friend, Unto God hath mine eye dropped:  

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  And he reasoneth for a man with God, And a son of man for his friend.  

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  When a few years do come, Then a path I return not do I go.  

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