Job 10
1 I am weary of my life; I will give free expression to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
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 merely condemn me; show me why you accuse me.
And I will say to the Lord, Do not teach me to be impious; and therefore have you thus judged me?
3 Is it good to you that you should oppress me, to despise the work of your hands while you smile on the plans of the wicked?
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 Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see like a man sees?
Or do you see as a mortal sees? or will you look as a man sees?
5 Are your days like the days of mankind or your years like the years of people,
Or is your life human, or your years [the years] of a man,
6 that you inquire after my iniquity and search after my sin,
that you have enquired into mine iniquity, and searched out my sins?
7 although you know I am not guilty and there is no one who can rescue me from your hand?
For you know that I have not committed iniquity: but who is he that can deliver out of your hands?
8 Your hands have framed and fashioned me together round about, yet you are destroying me.
Your hands have formed me and made me; afterwards you did change [your mind], and strike me.
9 Call to mind, I beg you, that you have fashioned me like clay; will you bring me into dust again?
Remember that you have made me [as] clay, and you do turn me again to earth.
10 Have you not poured me out like milk and curdled me like cheese?
Hast you not poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese?
11 You have clothed me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews.
And you did clothe me with skin and flesh, and frame me with bones and sinews.
12 You have granted me life and covenant faithfulness; your help has guarded my spirit.
And you did bestow upon me life and mercy, and your oversight has preserved my spirit.
13 Yet these things you hid in your heart— I know that this is what you were thinking:
Having these things in yourself, I know that you can do all things; for nothing is impossible with you.
14 that if I sinned, you would notice it; you would not acquit me of my iniquity.
And if I should sin, you watch me; and you have not cleared me from iniquity.
15 If I have acted wickedly, woe to me; and even if I acted righteously, I could not lift up my head, since I am filled with disgrace— see my affliction!
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 dishonour.
16 If my head were lifted up, you would stalk me like a lion; and again you would show yourself with marvellous acts of power against me.
For I am hunted like a lion for slaughter; for again you have changed and are terribly destroying me;
17 You bring new witnesses against me and increase your anger against me; you attack me with fresh armies.
renewing against me my torture: and you have dealt with me in great anger, and you have brought trials upon me.
18 Why, then, have you brought me out of the womb? I wish I had given up my spirit and that no eye had ever seen me.
Why then did you bring me out of the womb? and why did I not die, and no eye see me,
19 I would have been as though I had never existed; I would have been carried from the womb to the grave.
and I become as if I had not been? for why was I not carried from the womb to the grave?
20 Are not my days only a few? Stop then, let me alone, so that I may have a little rest
Is not the time of my life short? suffer me to rest a little,
21 before I go from where I will not return, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death,
before I go whence I shall not return, to a land of darkness and gloominess;
22 the land that is as dark as midnight, the land of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is like midnight.'”
to a land of perpetual darkness, where there is no light, neither [can any one] see the life of mortals.
