CHAPTER 16
1 Forsooth Job answered, and said,
2 I have oft heard such things; all ye be heavy comforters.
3 Whether words full of wind shall have an end? either anything is dis-easeful to thee, if thou speakest?
4 Also I might speak things like to you, and I would, that your soul were for my soul; and I would comfort you by words, and I would move mine head on you;
5 I would make you strong by my mouth, and I would move my lips as sparing you.
6 But what shall I do? If I speak, my sorrow resteth not; and if I am still, it goeth not away from me.
7 But now my sorrow hath oppressed me, and all my limbs be driven into nought.
8 My rivellings say witnessing against me, and a false speaker is raised up against my face, and against-saith me.
9 He gathered together his strong vengeance in me, and he menaced [or threatened] me, and he gnashed against me with his teeth; mine enemy hath beheld me with fearedful eyes.
10 They opened their mouths upon me, and they said shame to me, and they smote my cheek; and they be filled with my pains.
11 God hath enclosed me altogether at [or with] the wicked, and hath given me into the hands of wicked men.
12 I, that rich man and famous sometime, am all-broken suddenly; he held my noll; he hath broken me, and hath set [or put] me as into a sign.
13 And he hath encompassed me with his spears, he hath wounded altogether my loins; he hath not spared me, and he hath shed out mine entrails into the earth.
14 He hath beaten me with wound upon wound; and he as a giant hath fallen in upon me.
15 I sewed together a sackcloth upon my skin; and I covered my flesh with ashes.
16 My face swelled of weeping, and mine eyelids waxed dark.
17 I suffered these things without wickedness of mine hand, or work, when I had clean prayers to God.
18 Earth, cover thou not my blood, and my cry find not in thee a place of hiding.
19 For, lo! my witness is in heaven; and the Knower of my conscience is in high places.
20 O! my friends, full of words; mine eye droppeth out tears to God.
21 And I would, that a man were deemed so with God, as the son of man is deemed with his fellow.
22 For lo! short years pass, and I go a path, by which I shall not turn again.