² “I have heard many such things;
    miserable comforters are you all!
³ Will windy words have an end?
    Or what provokes you that you answer?
⁴ I also could speak as you do,
    if your soul were in my place.
I could heap up words against you
    and shake my head at you;
⁵ but I would strengthen you with my mouth,
    and the moving of my lips would relieve your grief.

⁶ “Though I speak, my grief is not relieved;
    and though I stop, how am I eased?
⁷ But now He has made me weary;
    You have made desolate all my company.
⁸ You have filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me;
    and my leanness has risen up and bears witness to my face.
⁹ He has torn me in His wrath, and He has carried a grudge against me.
    He has gnashed me with His teeth;
    my enemy sharpens His gaze upon me.
¹⁰ They have gaped upon me with their mouth;
    they have struck me upon the cheek with reproach;
    they have gathered themselves together against me.
¹¹ God has delivered me to the ungodly
    and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
¹² I was at ease, but He has shattered me.
    He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces,
and set me up for His target.
¹³     His archers surround me;
He splits open my kidneys and does not pity;
    He pours out my gall upon the ground.
¹⁴ He pierces me with thrust after thrust;
    He rushes upon me like a warrior.

¹⁵ “I have sewn sackcloth over my skin
    and thrust my horn into the dust.
¹⁶ My face is inflamed with weeping,
    and on my eyelids is the shadow of death,
¹⁷ though not for any violence in my hands,
    and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸ “O earth, do not cover my blood,
    and let my cry have no resting place.
¹⁹ Also now, look, my witness is in heaven,
    and my record is on high.
²⁰ My friends scorn me;
    my eyes pour out tears unto God.
²¹ Oh, that one might plead for a man with God,
    as a man pleads for his neighbor!

²² “For when a few years have passed,
    I will go the way from which I will not return.