1: Then Job defended himself:
2: "I've had all I can take of your talk. What a bunch of miserable comforters!
3: Is there no end to your windbag speeches? What's your problem that you go on and on like this?
4: If you were in my shoes, I could talk just like you. I could put together a terrific harangue and really let you have it.
5: But I'd never do that. I'd console and comfort, make things better, not worse!
6: "When I speak up, I feel no better; if I say nothing, that doesn't help either.
7: I feel worn down. God, you have wasted me totally--me and my family!
8: You've shriveled me like a dried prune, showing the world that you're against me. My gaunt face stares back at me from the mirror, a mute witness to your treatment of me.
9: Your anger tears at me, your teeth rip me to shreds, your eyes burn holes in me--God, my enemy!
10: People take one look at me and gasp. Contemptuous, they slap me around and gang up against me.
11: And God just stands there and lets them do it, lets wicked people do what they want with me.
12: I was contentedly minding my business when God beat me up. He grabbed me by the neck and threw me around. He set me up as his target,
13: then rounded up archers to shoot at me. Merciless, they shot me full of arrows; bitter bile poured from my gut to the ground.
14: He burst in on me, onslaught after onslaught, charging me like a mad bull.
15: "I sewed myself a shroud and wore it like a shirt; I lay face down in the dirt.
16: Now my face is blotched red from weeping; look at the dark shadows under my eyes,
17: Even though I've never hurt a soul and my prayers are sincere!
18: "O Earth, don't cover up the wrong done to me! Don't muffle my cry!
19: There must be Someone in heaven who knows the truth about me, in highest heaven, some Attorney who can clear my name--
20: My Champion, my Friend, while I'm weeping my eyes out before God.
21: I appeal to the One who represents mortals before God as a neighbor stands up for a neighbor.
22: "Only a few years are left before I set out on the road of no return.