Job Continues: A Plea to God

10 “I uloathe my life;

I will give free utterance to my vcomplaint;

I will speak in wthe bitterness of my soul.

2  I will say to God, Do not xcondemn me;

let me know why you ycontend against me.

3  zDoes it seem good to you to oppress,

to despise athe work of your hands

band favor the designs of the wicked?

4  Have you ceyes of flesh?

dDo you see as man sees?

5  Are your days as the days of man,

or your eyears as a man’s years,

6  that you fseek out my iniquity

and search for my sin,

7  although you gknow that I am not guilty,

and there is hnone to deliver out of your hand?

8  iYour hands fashioned and made me,

and now you have destroyed me altogether.

9  Remember that you have made me like jclay;

and will you return me to the kdust?

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 lthis was your purpose.

14  If I sin, you mwatch me

and do not nacquit me of my iniquity.

15  oIf I am guilty, woe to me!

If I am pin the right, I cannot lift up my head,

for I am filled with disgrace

and qlook on my affliction.

16  And were my head lifted up,1 you would hunt me like ra lion

and again work swonders against me.

17  You renew your twitnesses against me

and increase your vexation toward me;

you ubring fresh troops against me.

18  v“Why did you bring me out from the womb?

Would that I had died before any eye had seen me

19  wand were as though I had not been,

carried from the womb to the grave.

20  xAre not my days few?

yThen cease, and leave me alone, zthat I may find a little cheer

21  before I go—and aI shall not return—

to the land of bdarkness and cdeep shadow,

22  the land of gloom like thick darkness,

like deep shadow without any order,

where light is as thick darkness.”