Job 16

To this Job replied, 2. Thou hast but repeated the exercises and tormenting jargon which I had heard before. Instead of comforting, you plague, harass, and tempt me to despair

Job 16:3

When wilt thou make an end of such idle and impertinent discourse? What has instigated and emboldened thee to answer me in this censorious, scornful, and peremptory manner?

Job 16:4

Were your condition and mine exchanged, I could easily insult you with a multitude of words, and deride you in a grave and scornful manner

Job 16:5

I could furiously bear you down with my mouth, and restrain my lips from uttering a single sentence of consolation;—though I hope I should rather attempt to encourage, strengthen, and comfort you

Job 16:6

But now, indeed, whether I boldly defend my innocence and pour forth my complaints, or whether I forbear, my frightful sores and griefs are nothing eased

Job 16:7

This terrible trouble has quite tired me out, and made my life a burthen to me. Thou, O God, hast with thy thunderbolts and fiery tempest, utterly destroyed my large family, and all that pertained to me

Job 16:8

While others murder my character, and torment my spirit, thou, by plagues and griefs, hast so wasted and disfigured my body, that it testifies my great affliction, and is employed against me as a witness of my great wickedness

Job 16:9

Meanwhile, my pretended friends, who indeed implacably hate me, tear my reputation, and torment my spirit with their speeches. They reproach me in the most spiteful and outrageous manner; and, while their eyes sparkle with anger, they cruelly set themselves to spy out every, even the least occasion to calumniate me

Job 16:10

They behave like wild beasts, gaping to devour or deride me: they treat me with the most cruel and abusive scorn and contempt; they have met together to satisfy their infernal malice in tormenting me

Job 16:11

And God hath quite abandoned me, chained me up, and dreadfully cast me down into the hands of these and other wicked men, to be abused by them as they please

Job 16:12

Great was my former happiness and prosperity; but now God has trodden and bruised me in the press of his wrath, and made me, as it were, to boil over with dregs of trouble and desperate complaints. In the most tormenting manner he has ruined my soul, my body, my children, and all that I had: he has set me up as a distinguished butt of his fearful indignation

Job 16:13

Devils, wicked men, calamities, and diseases, as the instruments of his vengeance, compass me round about. Without mercy he torments me with the most exquisite pains in my body, anguish of mind, and terrors of conscience

Job 16:14

As a battering ram he breaks through me with breach upon breach, still adding one dreadful plague to another: he furiously rushes upon me with the almighty force of his wrath, which I can, by no means withstand or support

Job 16:15

The sackcloth I had put on all over my body, to mark my deep mourning and humiliation under his mighty hand, sticks to my ulcers; and, exhausted with wounds of trouble, I have sat down on this dung-hill, where all my former authority and honour are changed into contempt

Job 16:16

My face is terribly burnt, and fermented with trickling tears; and the very substance of my eyes is almost consumed with weeping, so that I look like one dead and rotting

Job 16:17

Although I was never a violent oppressor of men, or 3 an hypocritical worshipper of God

Job 16:18

O earth, if I have been guilty of bloodshed or oppression, conceal it not: let the dogs lick my blood when I am dead, and let neither God nor men regard my complaints or cries for pity while I am alive

Job 16:19

But what need these imprecations, when even now the all-seeing God, who dwells in the lofty regions of heaven, is the ear and the eye-witness of my virtue and true piety

Job 16:20

My companions mock and scoff at me as an hypocrite; but my soul, with floods of tears, earnestly appeals to God, and begs

Job 16:21

That he would thoroughly and clearly examine my cause, and give a decision between me and my reproaching friends

Job 16:22

Since, if it be not done quickly, my troubles will soon make an end of me, and then it will be too late

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XVI.—Often much is said, and yet nothing to the purpose: and miserable comforters to a wounded spirit are all duties, all friends, if God continue his frowns! Nothing but Jesus’ blood—nothing but JEHOVAH’S mercy—can grant any solid relief. Nay, alas! men are often most cruel and harsh when they ought to be most tender and compassionate; and those who riot in prosperity and ease seldom lay much to heart the case of their extremely distressed brethren. But though complicated and terrible are the troubles of saints in this world, unspeakably more so are the troubles of the wicked in hell, where there is nothing but curses—but torment in all its perfection! Happy are they who are here purged in God’s furnace! They sow in tears, but shall reap in joy. And, however hard it be to bring down their mind to their lot, the testimony of their good conscience, sprinkled with Jesus’ blood shall comfort them now. They have a good God to appeal to as their judge and friend. Their tears shall be put into his bottle, and marked in his book; and death, but destitute of his sting, shall soon set the prisoners free into a glorious eternity