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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.(A)

18 “O earth, do not cover my blood;
    let my outcry find no resting place.(B)
19 Even now my witness is in heaven,
    and my advocate is on high.(C)
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[a] one does for a neighbor.(D)
22 For when a few years have come,
    I shall go the way from which I shall not return.(E)

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Footnotes

  1. 16.21 Syr Vg Tg: Heb and

Job Prays for Relief

17 “My spirit is broken; my days are extinct;
    the grave is ready for me.(A)
Surely there are mockers around me,
    and my eye dwells on their provocation.(B)

“Lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
    who is there who will give surety for me?(C)
Since you have closed their minds to understanding,
    therefore you will not let them triumph.(D)
Those who denounce friends for reward—
    the eyes of their children will fail.(E)

“He has made me a byword of the peoples,
    and I am one before whom people spit.(F)
My eye has grown dim from grief,
    and all my members are like a shadow.(G)
The upright are appalled at this,
    and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless.
Yet the righteous hold to their way,
    and they who have clean hands grow stronger and stronger.(H)
10 But you, come back now, all of you,
    and I shall not find a sensible person among you.
11 My days are past; my plans are broken off,
    the desires of my heart.(I)
12 They make night into day;
    ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’[a]
13 If I look for Sheol as my house,
    if I spread my couch in darkness,(J)
14 if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’
    and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘My sister,’(K)
15 where then is my hope?
    Who will see my hope?(L)
16 Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
    Shall we descend together into the dust?”(M)

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Footnotes

  1. 17.12 Meaning of Heb uncertain