Job Frames His Plea to God

1 “I am disgusted with my life.

Let me complain freely.

My bitter soul must complain.

2 I will say to God, ‘Don’t simply condemn me—

tell me the charge you are bringing against me.

3 What do you gain by oppressing me?

Why do you reject me, the work of your own hands,

while smiling on the schemes of the wicked?

4 Are your eyes like those of a human?

Do you see things only as people see them?

5 Is your lifetime only as long as ours?

Is your life so short

6 that you must quickly probe for my guilt

and search for my sin?

7 Although you know I am not guilty,

no one can rescue me from your hands.

8 “ ‘You formed me with your hands; you made me,

yet now you completely destroy me.

9 Remember that you made me from dust—

will you turn me back to dust so soon?

10 You guided my conception

and formed me in the womb.*

11 You clothed me with skin and flesh,

and you knit my bones and sinews together.

12 You gave me life and showed me your unfailing love.

My life was preserved by your care.

13 “ ‘Yet your real motive—

your true intent—

14 was to watch me, and if I sinned,

you would not forgive my guilt.

15 If I am guilty, too bad for me;

and even if I’m innocent, I can’t hold my head high,

because I am filled with shame and misery.

16 And if I hold my head high, you hunt me like a lion

and display your awesome power against me.

17 Again and again you witness against me.

You pour out your growing anger on me

and bring fresh armies against me.

18 “ ‘Why, then, did you deliver me from my mother’s womb?

Why didn’t you let me die at birth?

19 It would be as though I had never existed,

going directly from the womb to the grave.

20 I have only a few days left, so leave me alone,

that I may have a moment of comfort

21 before I leave—never to return—

for the land of darkness and utter gloom.

22 It is a land as dark as midnight,

a land of gloom and confusion,

where even the light is dark as midnight.’ ”