English Standard Version ESV
New Living Translation NLT
1 Then Job answered and said:
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Then Job spoke again:
2 “I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all.
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“I have heard all this before. What miserable comforters you are!
3 Shall windy words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
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Won’t you ever stop blowing hot air? What makes you keep on talking?
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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I could say the same things if you were in my place. I could spout off criticism and shake my head at you.
5 I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.
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But if it were me, I would encourage you. I would try to take away your grief.
6 “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged, and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
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Instead, I suffer if I defend myself, and I suffer no less if I refuse to speak.
7 Surely now God has worn me out; he has made desolate all my company.
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“O God, you have ground me down and devastated 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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As if to prove I have sinned, you’ve reduced me to skin and bones. My gaunt flesh testifies against 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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God hates me and angrily tears me apart. He snaps his teeth at me and pierces me with his eyes.
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 jeer and laugh at me. They slap my cheek in contempt. A mob gathers against me.
11 God gives me up to the ungodly and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
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God has handed me over to sinners. He has tossed me into the hands of the wicked.
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 living quietly until he shattered me. He took me by the neck and broke me in pieces. Then 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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and now his archers surround me. His arrows pierce me without mercy. The ground is wet with my blood.
14 He breaks me with breach upon breach; he runs upon me like a warrior.
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Again and again he smashes against me, charging at me like a warrior.
15 I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin and have laid my strength in the dust.
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I wear burlap to show my grief. My pride lies in the dust.
16 My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is deep darkness,
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My eyes are red with weeping; dark shadows circle my eyes.
17 although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
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Yet I have done no wrong, and my prayer is pure.
18 “O earth, cover not my blood, and let my cry find no resting place.
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“O earth, do not conceal my blood. Let it cry out on my behalf.
19 Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he who testifies for me is on high.
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Even now my witness is in heaven. My advocate is there on high.
20 My friends scorn me; my eye pours out tears to God,
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My friends scorn me, but I pour out my tears to 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 need someone to mediate between God and me, as a person mediates between friends.
22 For when a few years have come I shall go the way from which I shall not return.
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For soon I must go down that road from which I will never return.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®) © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2025
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by
Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.