| Chapter 16 |
1 | Then Job answered and said,
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2 | I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.
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3 | Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?
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4 | 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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5 | But I would strengthen you with my mouth and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief.
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6 | Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased?
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7 | But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company.
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8 | 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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9 | 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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10 | 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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11 | God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
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12 | 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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13 | 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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14 | He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant.
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15 | I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.
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16 | My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids are the shades of death;
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17 | Not for any injustice in my hands: also my prayer is pure.
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18 | O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place.
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19 | Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high.
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20 | My friends scorn me: but my eye poureth out tears to God.
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21 | O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbor!
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22 | When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.
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