Job 10
Job Continues: A Plea to God
[1] “I loathe my life;
I will give free utterance to my complaint;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
[2] I will say to God, Do not condemn me;
let me know why you contend against me.
[3] Does it seem good to you to oppress,
to despise the work of your hands
and favor the designs of the wicked?
[4] Have you eyes of flesh?
Do you see as man sees?
[5] Are your days as the days of man,
or your years as a man’s years,
[6] that you seek out my iniquity
and search for my sin,
[7] although you know that I am not guilty,
and there is none to deliver out of your hand?
[8] Your hands fashioned and made me,
and now you have destroyed me altogether.
[9] Remember that you have made me like clay;
and will you return me to the dust?
[10] Did you not pour me out like milk
and curdle me like cheese?
[11] You clothed me with skin and flesh,
and knit me together with bones and sinews.
[12] You have granted me life and steadfast love,
and your care has preserved my spirit.
[13] Yet these things you hid in your heart;
I know that this was your purpose.
[14] If I sin, you watch me
and do not acquit me of my iniquity.
[15] If I am guilty, woe to me!
If I am in the right, I cannot lift up my head,
for I am filled with disgrace
and look on my affliction.
[16] And were my head lifted up, you would hunt me like a lion
and again work wonders against me.
[17] You renew your witnesses against me
and increase your vexation toward me;
you bring fresh troops against me.
[18] “Why did you bring me out from the womb?
Would that I had died before any eye had seen me
[19] and were as though I had not been,
carried from the womb to the grave.
[20] Are not my days few?
Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer
[21] before I go—and I shall not return—
to the land of darkness and deep shadow,
[22] the land of gloom like thick darkness,
like deep shadow without any order,
where light is as thick darkness.” (ESV)
