² “I have heard many such things;
    miserable comforters are you all.
³ Have windy words no limit?
    Or what provokes you that you keep on talking?^(A)
4 I also could talk as you do,
    if you were in my place;
I could join words together against you
    and shake my head at you.^(B)
5 I could encourage you with my mouth,
    and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.

⁶ “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
    and if I refrain, how much of it leaves me?
⁷ Surely now God has worn me out;
    he has^[a] made desolate all my company.^(C)
8 And he has^[b] shriveled me up,
    which is a witness against me;
my leanness has risen up against me,
    and it testifies to my face.^(D)
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.^(E)
10 They have gaped at me with their mouths;
    they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
    they mass themselves together against me.^(F)
11 God gives me up to the evil
    and casts me into the hands of the wicked.^(G)
12 I was at ease, and he broke me in two;
    he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
he set me up as his target;^(H)
13     his archers surround me.
He slashes open my kidneys and shows no mercy;
    he pours out my gall on the ground.^(I)
14 He bursts upon me again and again;
    he rushes at me like a warrior.^(J)
15 I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin
    and have laid my strength in the dust.^(K)
16 My face is red with weeping,
    and deep darkness is on my eyelids,
¹⁷ though there is no violence in my hands,
    and my prayer is pure.^(L)

¹⁸ “O earth, do not cover my blood;
    let my outcry find no resting place.^(M)
19 Even now my witness is in heaven,
    and my advocate is on high.^(N)
20 My friends scorn me;
    my eye pours out tears to God,
²¹ that he would maintain the right of a mortal with God,
    as^[c] one does for a neighbor.^(O)
22 For when a few years have come,
    I shall go the way from which I shall not return.^(P)