JOB C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 C18 C19 C20 C21 C22 C23 C24 C25 C26 C27 C28 C29 C30 C31 C32 C33 C34 C35 C36 C37 C38 C39 C40 C41 C42

UST JOB Chapter 16

◄ JOB 16 ► ║ ═ ©

16 Then Job replied to Eliphaz and the others. He said,

2 “I have heard many things like that before.

All of you, instead of helping me, are only causing me to feel more miserable.

3 I wish that you would stop saying these things that are not helping me.

Eliphaz, I do not understand why you feel that you must keep replying to me.

I could say the same things that you are saying

if you were the ones suffering instead of me.

I could make great speeches to criticize you,

and I could shake my head at you to ridicule you.

5 I would think that I was encouraging you by what I said.

Yes, I would think that I was relieving you by speaking with you

6 But as it is, if I talk, I continue to suffer just as much,

and if I do not talk, that does not reduce my suffering either.

7 But now I will speak to God.

God, you have taken away all my strength,

and you have killed all of my children.

8 You have made me sick, and I have lost a lot of weight,

and people think that shows that I am a sinner.

They see how thin I am,

and they think that proves that I am guilty.

9 God is so angry with me that he has attacked me and hurt me.

Now he is moving his teeth back and forth because he is still so angry with me.

He is watching me closely to see how he can attack me again. 10 People look at me with their mouths wide open in order to humiliate me.

They hit me in the face because they think I have done wrong.

They crowd around me to threaten me.

11 God has allowed people who do not honor him to mistreat me.

He has allowed wicked people to do whatever they want to me.

12 Previously, I was living peacefully,

but then God caused great trouble for me.

It is as if he grabbed my neck and shook me to pieces.

It is as if he set me up as a target

13 and people were surrounding me and shooting arrows at me.

It is as if those arrows cut open my kidneys

and caused the gall from my liver to spill onto the ground.

God is not having any mercy on me at all!

14 It is as if I were a wall that God was breaking down in many places.

It is as if God were rushing at me like a soldier who was attacking his enemy.

15 I am grieving so deeply that it is as if I have sewn rough mourning cloth right onto my skin!

I feel weak and humiliated.

16 My face is red because I have cried so much.

I have dark circles around my eyes because I have not been sleeping well.

17 All this has happened to me even though I have not violently harmed anyone

and even though I pray sincerely to God.

18 I feel as if I am the victim of a violent crime, and I want people to show concern about what has happened to me.

I do not want anyone to stop me while I am demanding that God act justly toward me.

19 But even now, I know that there is someone in heaven who will testify for me.

He will confirm that what I have done is right.

20 This person in heaven is my friend,

and he will plead with God for me.

At the same time, I will also plead with God

so earnestly that I will weep.

21 My friend will plead with God for me in heaven

the same way one person pleads for another person here on earth.

22 I want God to treat me justly now, while there is still time,

because within a few years I will die.

JOB C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 C18 C19 C20 C21 C22 C23 C24 C25 C26 C27 C28 C29 C30 C31 C32 C33 C34 C35 C36 C37 C38 C39 C40 C41 C42