English Standard Version ESV
The Message Bible MSG
1 Then Job answered and said:
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Then Job defended himself:
2 "I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all.
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"I've had all I can take of your talk. What a bunch of miserable comforters!
3 Shall windy words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
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Is there no end to your windbag speeches? What's your problem that you go on and on like this?
4 I also could speak as you do, if you were in my place; I could join words together against you and shake my head at you.
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If you were in my shoes, I could talk just like you. I could put together a terrific harangue and really let you have it.
5 I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.
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But I'd never do that. I'd console and comfort, make things better, not worse!
6 "If I speak, my pain is not assuaged, and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
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"When I speak up, I feel no better; if I say nothing, that doesn't help either.
7 Surely now God has worn me out; he has made desolate all my company.
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I feel worn down. God, you have wasted me totally - me and my family!
8 And he has shriveled me up, which is a witness against me, and my leanness has risen up against me; it testifies to my face.
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You've shriveled me like a dried prune, showing the world that you're against me. My gaunt face stares back at me from the mirror, a mute witness to your treatment of me.
9 He has torn me in his wrath and hated me; he has gnashed his teeth at me; my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
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Your anger tears at me, your teeth rip me to shreds, your eyes burn holes in me - God, my enemy!
10 Men have gaped at me with their mouth; they have struck me insolently on the cheek; they mass themselves together against me.
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People take one look at me and gasp. Contemptuous, they slap me around and gang up against me.
11 God gives me up to the ungodly and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
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And God just stands there and lets them do it, lets wicked people do what they want with me.
12 I was at ease, and he broke me apart; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces; he set me up as his target;
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I was contentedly minding my business when God beat me up. He grabbed me by the neck and threw me around. He set me up as his target,
13 his archers surround me. He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare; he pours out my gall on the ground.
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then rounded up archers to shoot at me. Merciless, they shot me full of arrows; bitter bile poured from my gut to the ground.
14 He breaks me with breach upon breach; he runs upon me like a warrior.
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He burst in on me, onslaught after onslaught, charging me like a mad bull.
15 I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin and have laid my strength in the dust.
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"I sewed myself a shroud and wore it like a shirt; I lay face down in the dirt.
16 My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is deep darkness,
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Now my face is blotched red from weeping; look at the dark shadows under my eyes,
17 although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
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Even though I've never hurt a soul and my prayers are sincere! The One Who Represents Mortals Before God
18 "O earth, cover not my blood, and let my cry find no resting place.
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"O Earth, don't cover up the wrong done to me! Don't muffle my cry!
19 Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he who testifies for me is on high.
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There must be Someone in heaven who knows the truth about me, in highest heaven, some Attorney who can clear my name -
20 My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God,
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My Champion, my Friend, while I'm weeping my eyes out before God.
21 that he would argue the case of a man with God, as a son of man does with his neighbor.
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I appeal to the One who represents mortals before God as a neighbor stands up for a neighbor.
22 For when a few years have come I shall go the way from which I shall not return.
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"Only a few years are left before I set out on the road of no return.
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.