Job becomes impatient and wishes his friends were in his place so he could return their treatment. His thoughts often drift between heaven and earth, speaking to either God or his friends. Job responds not with repentance but with expressions of pain and sorrow (16:15; cf. 1:20), like someone sensing death is near (16:18-17:2). An Old Testament belief held that the blood of an innocent victim cried out from the ground for justice—for example, Abel’s blood (Gn 4:10). Job hopes that after his lips are sealed in death, his blood will still cry out. Once seeking an arbitrator between himself and God, now he longs for a witness or intercessor above (16:19), likely a member of the heavenly Council who, unlike Satan, will intercede for him. Feeling forgotten, alone, and mocked, his thoughts turn to death (17:11-16), as depicted through bleak images: the land of the dead (17:13-16), darkness (17:13), decay and worms (17:14), and dust (17:16).