Job 16

• 1. Then Job spoke again:
• 2. "I have heard all this before. What miserable comforters you are!
• 3. Won't you ever stop your flow of foolish words? What have I said that makes you speak so endlessly?
• 4. I could say the same things if you were in my place. I could spout off my criticisms against you and shake my head at you.
• 5. But that's not what I would do. I would speak in a way that helps you. I would try to take away your grief.
• 6. But as it is, my grief remains no matter how I defend myself. And it does not help if I refuse to speak.
• 7. "O God, you have ground me down and devastated my family.
• 8. You have reduced me to skin and bones--as proof, they say, of my sins.
• 9. God hates me and tears angrily at my flesh. He gnashes his teeth at me and pierces me with his eyes.
• 10. People jeer and laugh at me. They slap my cheek in contempt. A mob gathers against me.
• 11. God has handed me over to sinners. He has tossed me into the hands of the wicked.
• 12. "I was living quietly until he broke me apart. He took me by the neck and dashed me to pieces. Then he set me up as his target.
• 13. His archers surrounded me, and his arrows pierced me without mercy. The ground is wet with my blood.
• 14. Again and again he smashed me, charging at me like a warrior.
• 15. Here I sit in sackcloth. I have surrendered, and I sit in the dust.
• 16. My eyes are red with weeping; darkness covers my eyes.
• 17. Yet I am innocent, and my prayer is pure.
• 18. "O earth, do not conceal my blood. Let it cry out on my behalf.
• 19. Even now my witness is in heaven. My advocate is there on high.
• 20. My friends scorn me, but I pour out my tears to God.
• 21. Oh, that someone would mediate between God and me, as a person mediates between friends.
• 22. For soon I must go down that road from which I will never return.

Job 17

• 1. "My spirit is crushed, and I am near death. The grave is ready to receive me.
• 2. I am surrounded by mockers. I watch how bitterly they taunt me.
• 3. "You must defend my innocence, O God, since no one else will stand up for me.
• 4. You have closed their minds to understanding, but do not let them triumph.
• 5. They denounce their companions for their own advantage, so let their children faint with hunger.
• 6. "God has made a mockery of me among the people; they spit in my face.
• 7. My eyes are dim with weeping, and I am but a shadow of my former self.
• 8. The upright are astonished when they see me. The innocent are aroused against the ungodly.
• 9. The righteous will move onward and forward, and those with pure hearts will become stronger and stronger.
• 10. "As for all of you, come back and try again! But I will not find a wise man among you.
• 11. My days are over. My hopes have disappeared. My heart's desires are broken.
• 12. They say that night is day and day is night; how they pervert the truth!
• 13. I might go to the grave and make my bed in darkness.
• 14. And I might call the grave my father, and the worm my mother and my sister.
• 15. But where then is my hope? Can anyone find it?
• 16. No, my hope will go down with me to the grave. We will rest together in the dust!"

Job 18

• 1. Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:
• 2. "How long before you stop talking? Speak sense if you want us to answer!
• 3. Do you think we are cattle? Do you think we have no intelligence?
• 4. You may tear your hair out in anger, but will that cause the earth to be abandoned? Will it make rocks fall from a cliff?
• 5. "The truth remains that the light of the wicked will be snuffed out. The sparks of their fire will not glow.
• 6. The light in their tent will grow dark. The lamp hanging above them will be quenched.
• 7. The confident stride of the wicked will be shortened. Their own schemes will be their downfall.
• 8. "The wicked walk into a net. They fall into a pit that's been dug in the path.
• 9. A trap grabs them by the heel. A noose tightens around them.
• 10. A snare lies hidden in the ground. A rope lies coiled on their path.
• 11. "Terrors surround the wicked and trouble them at every step.
• 12. Their vigor is depleted by hunger, and calamity waits for them to stumble.
• 13. Disease eats their skin; death devours their limbs.
• 14. They are torn from the security of their tent, and they are brought down to the king of terrors.
• 15. The home of the wicked will disappear beneath a fiery barrage of burning sulfur.
• 16. Their roots will dry up, and their branches will wither.
• 17. All memory of their existence will perish from the earth. No one will remember them.
• 18. They will be thrust from light into darkness, driven from the world.
• 19. They will have neither children nor grandchildren, nor any survivor in their home country.
• 20. People in the west are appalled at their fate; people in the east are horrified.
• 21. They will say, `This was the home of a wicked person, the place of one who rejected God.'"

New Living Translation: 158 of 324 days.