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 am weary of my life; I will let loose within me my complaint; I will 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 will say unto God, Do not condemn me! Show me wherefore thou contendest 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 a pleasure to thee to oppress, And to despise the work of thy hands, And to shine upon the plans of the wicked?

4 Do you have bodily eyes? Or, just as man sees, will you see?

Hast thou eyes of flesh, Or seest thou as man seeth?

5 Are your days just like the days of man, and are your years as the times of humans,

Are thy days as the days of a man, Are thy years as the days of a mortal,

6 so that you would inquire about my iniquity and examine my sin?

That thou seekest after my iniquity, And searchest after my sin,

7 And you know that I have done nothing impious, yet there is no one who can deliver from your hand.

Though thou knowest that I am not guilty, And that none can deliver from thy hand?

8 Your hands have made me and formed me all around, and, in this way, do you suddenly throw me away?

Have thy hands completely fashioned and made me In every part, that thou mightst destroy me?

9 Remember, I ask you, that you have fashioned me like clay, and you will reduce me to dust.

O remember that thou hast moulded me as clay! And wilt thou bring me again to dust?

10 Have you not extracted me like milk and curdled me like cheese?

Thou didst 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.

With skin and flesh didst thou clothe me, And strengthen me with bones and sinews;

12 You have assigned to me life and mercy, and your visitation has preserved my spirit.

Thou didst grant me life and favor, And thy protection preserved my breath:

13 Though you may conceal this in your heart, yet I know that you remember everything.

Yet these things thou didst lay up in thy heart! I know that this was in thy mind.

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 sin, then thou markest me, And wilt not acquit me of mine 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 am wicked, —then woe unto me! Yet if righteous, I dare not lift up my head; I am full of confusion, beholding my affliction.

16 And because of pride, you will seize me like a lioness, and having returned, you torment me to an extraordinary degree.

If I lift it up, like a lion thou huntest me, And again showest thyself terrible unto me.

17 You renew your testimony against me, and you multiply your wrath against me, and these punishments make war within me.

Thou renewest thy witnesses against me, And increasest thine anger toward me; New hosts continually rise up 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!

Why then didst thou bring me forth from the womb? I should have perished, and no eye had seen me;

19 I should have been as if I had not been: transferred from the womb to the tomb.

I should be as though I had not been; I should have been borne 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,

Are not my days few? O spare then, And let me alone, that I may be at ease a little while,

21 before I depart and return no more to a land that is dark and covered with the fog of death,

Before I go— whence I shall not return—To the 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.

The land of darkness like the blackness of death-shade, Where is no order, and where the light is as darkness.