Then Job answered and said,
I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are you all.
Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldens you that you answer?
I also could speak as you do: if your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you.
But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief.
Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased?
But now he has made me weary: you have made desolate all my company.
And you have filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me bears witness to my face.
He tears me in his wrath, who hates me: he gnashes on me with his teeth; my enemy sharpens his eyes on me.
They have gaped on me with their mouth; they have smitten me on the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me.
God has delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
I was at ease, but he has broken me asunder: he has also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark.
His archers compass me round about, he splits my reins asunder, and does not spare; he pours out my gall on the ground.
He breaks me with breach on breach, he runs on me like a giant.
I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.
My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;
Not for any injustice in my hands: also my prayer is pure.
O earth, cover not you my blood, and let my cry have no place.
Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high.
My friends scorn me: but my eye pours out tears to God.
O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor!
When a few years are come, then I shall go the way from where I shall not return.
Canonical academic citations for Job 16 (AKJV) — copy in your preferred format.
Job 16 (AKJV). Prime Bible, accessed July 30, 2026. https://primebible.com/akjv/job/16.
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Job calls his friends "miserable comforters" who would speak differently if roles were reversed. Describes how God has worn him out, torn him in wrath, and delivered him to the ungodly. Maintains his prayer is pure; calls on earth not to cover his blood and heaven to witness his cry.
Extended poetic disputation on righteousness and suffering.
Job 16 is presented with the full Hebrew interlinear, Strong's numbers, and verse-by-verse cross-references on Prime Bible — a free, nonprofit Bible study platform.