< 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.
“My soul has been weary of my life, I leave off my talking to myself, I speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2 I will say to God: Do not be willing to condemn me. Reveal to me why you judge me this way.
I say to God, Do not condemn me, Let me know why You strive [with] 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?
Is it good for You that You oppress? That You despise the labor of Your hands, And shine on the counsel of the wicked?
4 Do you have bodily eyes? Or, just as man sees, will you see?
Do you have eyes of flesh? Do You see as man sees?
5 Are your days just like the days of man, and are your years as the times of humans,
[Are] Your days as the days of man? Your years as the days of a man?
6 so that you would inquire about my iniquity and examine my sin?
That You inquire for my iniquity, And seek for my sin?
7 And you know that I have done nothing impious, yet there is no one who can deliver from your hand.
For You know that I am not wicked, And there is no deliverer from Your hand.
8 Your hands have made me and formed me all around, and, in this way, do you suddenly throw me away?
Your hands have taken pains about me, And they make me together all around, And You swallow me up!
9 Remember, I ask you, that you have fashioned me like clay, and you will reduce me to dust.
Please remember That You have made me as clay, And You bring me back to dust.
10 Have you not extracted me like milk and curdled me like cheese?
Do You not pour me out as milk? And curdle me as cheese?
11 You have clothed me with skin and flesh. You have put me together with bones and nerves.
Skin and flesh You put on me, And fence me with bones and sinews.
12 You have assigned to me life and mercy, and your visitation has preserved my spirit.
Life and kindness You have done with me. And Your inspection has preserved my spirit.
13 Though you may conceal this in your heart, yet I know that you remember everything.
And these You have laid up in Your heart, I have known that this [is] with You.
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?
If I sinned, then You have observed me, And do not acquit me from my iniquity,
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 have done wickedly—woe to me, And righteously—I do not lift up my head, Full of shame—then see my affliction,
16 And because of pride, you will seize me like a lioness, and having returned, you torment me to an extraordinary degree.
And it rises—as a lion You hunt me. And You turn back—You show Yourself wonderful in me.
17 You renew your testimony against me, and you multiply your wrath against me, and these punishments make war within me.
You renew Your witnesses against me, and multiply Your anger with me, Changes and warfare [are] with 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!
And why from the womb Have You brought me forth? I expire, and the eye does not see me.
19 I should have been as if I had not been: transferred from the womb to the tomb.
I am as [if] I had not been, I am brought from the belly to the grave,
20 Will not my few days be completed soon? Release me, therefore, so that I may lament my sorrows a little,
Are my days not few? Cease then, and put from me, And I brighten up a little,
21 before I depart and return no more to a land that is dark and covered with the fog of death,
Before I go, and do not return, To a land of darkness and death-shade,
22 a land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death, and nothing else but everlasting horror, dwells.
A land of obscurity as thick darkness, Death-shade—and no order, And the shining [is] as thick darkness.”