Job Chapter 16
The question" Why do innocent people suffer?" Is addressed in this biblical story.
American King James Version
16 : 1 Then Job answered and said,
16 : 2 I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are you all.
16 : 3 Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldens you that you answer?
16 : 4 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.
16 : 5 But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief.
16 : 6 Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased?
16 : 7 But now he has made me weary: you have made desolate all my company.
16 : 8 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.
16 : 9 He tears me in his wrath, who hates me: he gnashes on me with his teeth; my enemy sharpens his eyes on me.
16 : 10 They have gaped on me with their mouth; they have smitten me on the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me.
16 : 11 God has delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
16 : 12 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.
16 : 13 His archers compass me round about, he splits my reins asunder, and does not spare; he pours out my gall on the ground.
16 : 14 He breaks me with breach on breach, he runs on me like a giant.
16 : 15 I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.
16 : 16 My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;
16 : 17 Not for any injustice in my hands: also my prayer is pure.
16 : 18 O earth, cover not you my blood, and let my cry have no place.
16 : 19 Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high.
16 : 20 My friends scorn me: but my eye pours out tears to God.
16 : 21 O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor!
16 : 22 When a few years are come, then I shall go the way from where I shall not return.