Job 10

1 My soul is tired of life; I will let my sad thoughts go free in words; my soul will make a bitter outcry.

Weary in my soul, I will pour my words with groans upon him: I will speak being straitened in the bitterness of my soul.

2 I will say to God, Do not put me down as a sinner; make clear to me what you have against me.

And I will say to the Lord, Do not teach me to be impious; and therefore have you thus judged me?

3 What profit is it to you to be cruel, to give up the work of your hands, looking kindly on the design of evil-doers?

Is it good before you if I be unrighteous? for you have disowned the work of your hands, and attended to the counsel of the ungodly.

4 Have you eyes of flesh, or do you see as man sees?

Or do you see as a mortal sees? or will you look as a man sees?

5 Are your days as the days of man, or your years like his,

Or is your life human, or your years [the years] of a man,

6 That you take note of my sin, searching after my wrongdoing,

that you have enquired into mine iniquity, and searched out my sins?

7 Though you see that I am not an evil-doer; and there is no one who is able to take a man out of your hands?

For you know that I have not committed iniquity: but who is he that can deliver out of your hands?

8 Your hands made me, and I was formed by you, but then, changing your purpose, you gave me up to destruction.

Your hands have formed me and made me; afterwards you did change [your mind], and strike me.

9 O keep in mind that you made me out of earth; and will you send me back again to dust?

Remember that you have made me [as] clay, and you do turn me again to earth.

10 Was I not drained out like milk, becoming hard like cheese?

Hast you not poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese?

11 By you I was clothed with skin and flesh, and joined together with bones and muscles.

And you did clothe me with skin and flesh, and frame me with bones and sinews.

12 You have been kind to me, and your grace has been with me, and your care has kept my spirit safe.

And you did bestow upon me life and mercy, and your oversight has preserved my spirit.

13 But you kept these things in the secret of your heart; I am certain this was in your thoughts:

Having these things in yourself, I know that you can do all things; for nothing is impossible with you.

14 That, if I did wrong, you would take note of it, and would not make me clear from sin:

And if I should sin, you watch me; and you have not cleared me from iniquity.

15 That, if I was an evil-doer, the curse would come on me; and if I was upright, my head would not be lifted up, being full of shame and overcome with trouble.

Or if I should be ungodly, woe is me: and if I should be righteous, I can’t lift myself up, for I am full of dishonor.

16 And that if there was cause for pride, you would go after me like a lion; and again put out your wonders against me:

For I am hunted like a lion for slaughter; for again you have changed and are terribly destroying me;

17 That you would send new witnesses against me, increasing your wrath against me, and letting loose new armies on me.

renewing against me my torture: and you have dealt with me in great anger, and you have brought trials upon me.

18 Why then did you make me come out of my mother's body? It would have been better for me to have taken my last breath, and for no eye to have seen me,

Why then did you bring me out of the womb? and why did I not die, and no eye see me,

19 And for me to have been as if I had not been; to have been taken from my mother's body straight to my last resting-place.

and I become as if I had not been? for why was I not carried from the womb to the grave?

20 Are not the days of my life small in number? Let your eyes be turned away from me, so that I may have a little pleasure,

Is not the time of my life short? suffer me to rest a little,

21 Before I go to the place from which I will not come back, to the land where all is dark and black,

before I go whence I shall not return, to a land of darkness and gloominess;

22 A land of thick dark, without order, where the very light is dark.

to a land of perpetual darkness, where there is no light, neither [can any one] see the life of mortals.