How painful are honest words! But what does your reproof prove?

He would certainly rebuke you if you secretly showed partiality!

Do you intend to criticize mere words, and treat the words of a despairing man as wind?

Is it because of your piety that he rebukes you and goes to judgment with you?

Nor is there an arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both,

Does he argue with useless talk, with words that have no value in them?

and he contends with God on behalf of man as a man pleads for his friend.

If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and plead my disgrace against me,

There an upright person could present his case before him, and I would be delivered forever from my judge.

Or a person is chastened by pain on his bed, and with the continual strife of his bones,

“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let the person who accuses God give him an answer!”

“Therefore, blessed is the man whom God corrects, so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.

But I wish to speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God.

Even if he slays me, I will hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face!

Now I was paying you close attention, yet there was no one proving Job wrong, not one of you was answering his statements!