Job 10
1 My soul is weary of my life. I will release my words against myself. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
I hate my life! Let me speak freely about my complaints—I can't keep my bitterness to myself.
2 I will say to God: Do not be willing to condemn me. Reveal to me why you judge me this way.
I will tell God, “Don't just condemn me—tell me what you have against me.
3 Does it seem good to you, if you find fault with me and oppress me, the work of your own hands, and assist the counsel of the impious?
Do you enjoy accusing me? Why do you reject me, someone you made with your own hands, and yet smile on the scheming of the wicked?
4 Do you have bodily eyes? Or, just as man sees, will you see?
Do you have human eyes? Do you see like human beings do?
5 Are your days just like the days of man, and are your years as the times of humans,
Is your life as short as mortal beings? Are your years as brief as those of humanity,
6 so that you would inquire about my iniquity and examine my sin?
that you have to examine my wrongs and investigate my sins?
7 And you know that I have done nothing impious, yet there is no one who can deliver from your hand.
Even though you know I'm not guilty, no one can save me from you.
8 Your hands have made me and formed me all around, and, in this way, do you suddenly throw me away?
You made me and shaped me with your own hands, and yet you destroy me.
9 Remember, I ask you, that you have fashioned me like clay, and you will reduce me to dust.
Remember that you shaped me like a piece of clay—are you now going to turn me back into dust?
10 Have you not extracted me like milk and curdled me like cheese?
You poured me out like milk, you curdled me like cheese.
11 You have clothed me with skin and flesh. You have put me together with bones and nerves.
You clothed me with skin and flesh; you wove my body together with bones and muscles.
12 You have assigned to me life and mercy, and your visitation has preserved my spirit.
You granted me life and showed me your kindness; you have taken great care of me.
13 Though you may conceal this in your heart, yet I know that you remember everything.
But you kept these things hidden in your heart. I know your purpose was
14 If I have sinned, and you have spared me for an hour, why do you not endure me to be clean from my iniquity?
to watch me, and if I sinned, then you would not forgive my wrongs.
15 And if I should be impious, woe to me, and if I should be just, I will not lift up my head, being drenched with affliction and misery.
If I'm guilty I'm in trouble, if I'm innocent I can't hold my head high because I'm totally disgraced as I look at my sufferings.
16 And because of pride, you will seize me like a lioness, and having returned, you torment me to an extraordinary degree.
If I do hold my head high you hunt me down like a lion, showing how powerful you are in hurting me.
17 You renew your testimony against me, and you multiply your wrath against me, and these punishments make war within me.
You repeat your arguments against me, you pour out more and more of your anger against me, you send fresh armies against me.
18 Why did you lead me out of the womb? If only I had been consumed, so that no eye would ever see me!
So why did you allow me to be born? I wish that I had died, and nobody had ever seen me!
19 I should have been as if I had not been: transferred from the womb to the tomb.
It would have been better if I had never existed, taken straight from the womb to the grave.
20 Will not my few days be completed soon? Release me, therefore, so that I may lament my sorrows a little,
I only have a few days left, so why don't you leave me alone so I can have a little peace
21 before I depart and return no more to a land that is dark and covered with the fog of death,
before I go to where I shall never return from, the land of darkness and the shadow of death—
22 a land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death, and nothing else but everlasting horror, dwells.
the land of total darkness where death's shadow lies, a place of chaos where light itself is darkness.”
