Job Decries His Comforters 1 UDB Job replied to Eliphaz and the others, BSB BSB: Then Job answered:
2 UDB "I have heard things like that before; all of you, instead of helping me, are only causing me to feel more miserable. BSB BSB: “I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all.
3 UDB Will your speeches, which are only wind, never end? Eliphaz, what bothers you that makes you continue replying like this to me? BSB BSB: Is there no end to your long-winded speeches? What provokes you to continue testifying?
4 UDB If it were you three and not I who were suffering, I could, in your place, say the things that you are saying. I could make great speeches to criticize you, and I could shake my head at you to ridicule you. BSB BSB: I could also speak like you if you were in my place; I could heap up words against you and shake my head at you.
5 UDB Then you would see whether my words encouraged you or not; you would see whether they made you feel your pain less. BSB BSB: But I would encourage you with my mouth, and the consolation of my lips would bring relief.
6 UDB But now, if I talk, my pain does not decrease, and if I am silent, my pain still certainly does not go away. BSB BSB: Even if I speak, my pain is not relieved, and if I hold back, how will it go away?
7 UDB God, you have now taken away all my strength; you have destroyed all my family. BSB BSB: Surely He has now exhausted me; You have devastated all my family.
8 UDB You have shriveled me up, and people think that shows me to be a sinner. They see that I am only skin and bones, and they think that proves that I am guilty. BSB BSB: You have bound me, and it has become a witness; my frailty rises up and testifies against me.
9 UDB Because God is very angry with me and hates me, it is as though he were a wild animal that tore me apart with his teeth because he was my enemy. BSB BSB: His anger has torn me and opposed me; He gnashes His teeth at me. My adversary pierces me with His eyes.
10 UDB People gape at me with their mouths open to sneer at me; they have struck me on the face to ridicule me, and they crowd around me to threaten me. BSB BSB: They open their mouths against me and strike my cheeks with contempt; they join together against me.
11 UDB It is as though God has handed me over to people who refuse to honor him and has put me into the power of the wicked. BSB BSB: God has delivered me to unjust men; He has thrown me to the clutches of the wicked.
12 UDB Previously, I was living peacefully, but he crushed me; it is as though he grabbed my neck and smashed me to pieces; it is as though he set me up like a target. BSB BSB: I was at ease, but He shattered me; He seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has set me up as His target;
13 UDB It is as though I were a target, and that people were surrounding me and shooting arrows at me. God's arrows pierce my kidneys and cause the bile from my liver to spill onto the ground; God does not pity me at all. BSB BSB: His archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my gall on the ground.
14 UDB It is as though I were a wall that he is breaking through time after time; he rushes at me like a soldier who is attacking his enemy. BSB BSB: He breaks me with wound upon wound; He rushes me like a mighty warrior.
15 UDB Because I am mourning, I wear pieces of rough cloth that I have sewed together, and I sit here in the dirt, very depressed. BSB BSB: I have sewn sackcloth over my skin; I have buried my horn in the dust.
16 UDB My face is red because I have cried very much, and there are dark circles around my eyes. BSB BSB: My face is red with weeping, and deep shadows ring my eyes;
17 UDB All this has happened to me even though I have not acted violently toward anyone, and even though I always pray sincerely to God. BSB BSB: yet my hands are free of violence and my prayer is pure.
18 UDB When I die, I want the ground to act as though I had been murdered; I want it to cry out against those who killed me, and I do not want anyone to stop me while I am demanding that God act justly toward me. BSB BSB: O earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry for help never be laid to rest.
19 UDB But even now, I know that there is someone in heaven who will testify for me, and he will say that what I have done is right. BSB BSB: Even now my witness is in heaven, and my advocate is on high.
20 UDB My three friends scorn me, but my eyes are full of tears while I cry out to God. BSB BSB: My friends are my scoffers as my eyes pour out tears to God.
21 UDB I pray that the one who knows what I have done would come to plead with God for me as a person pleads for his friend. BSB BSB: Oh, that a man might plead with God as he pleads with his neighbor!
22 UDB I say this because within a few years I will die; I will walk along the road to a place from which I will never return." BSB BSB: For when only a few years are past I will go the way of no return.
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.