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New International Version |   | |
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| | Job 16:1 | Then Job replied:
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| | Job 16:2 | "I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all!
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| | Job 16:3 | Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?
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| | Job 16:4 | I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you.
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| | Job 16:5 | But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.
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| | Job 16:6 | "Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away.
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| | Job 16:7 | Surely, O God, you have worn me out; you have devastated my entire household.
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| | Job 16:8 | You have bound me--and it has become a witness; my gauntness rises up and testifies against me.
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| | Job 16:9 | God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.
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| | Job 16:10 | Men open their mouths to jeer at me; they strike my cheek in scorn and unite together against me.
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| | Job 16:11 | God has turned me over to evil men and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked.
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| | Job 16:12 | All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target;
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| | Job 16:13 | his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground.
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| | Job 16:14 | Again and again he bursts upon me; he rushes at me like a warrior.
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| | Job 16:15 | "I have sewed sackcloth over my skin and buried my brow in the dust.
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| | Job 16:16 | My face is red with weeping, deep shadows ring my eyes;
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| | Job 16:17 | yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure.
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| | Job 16:18 | "O earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest!
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| | Job 16:19 | Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high.
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| | Job 16:20 | My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God;
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| | Job 16:21 | on behalf of a man he pleads with God as a man pleads for his friend.
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| | Job 16:22 | "Only a few years will pass before I go on the journey of no return.
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