Job 10

ISV^{(i) 1} Job Asks God to Acquit Him “I am disgusted with living, so I’m going to talk about my complaint freely. I’ll speak out from the bitterness of my soul. ² I’ll say to God, ‘Don’t condemn me! Let me know why you are fighting me. ³ Does it delight you to oppress or despise what you have made, while you smile at the plans of the wicked? ⁴ Do you have eyes made of flesh? Can you look at things as humans do? ⁵ Can you live only as long as a human being? Or live the years of a mortal man? ⁶ “‘For you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin. ⁷ Although you know that I’m not guilty, there’s no one to deliver me from you! ⁸ Your hands formed and fashioned me, but then you have destroyed me all at once on all sides. ⁹ “‘Please remember that you’ve made me like clay and you’ll return me to dust. ¹⁰ Didn’t you pour me out like milk and let me congeal like cheese? ¹¹ You covered me with skin and flesh, weaving me together with bones and sinews. ¹² You gave life and gracious love to me; your providential care has preserved my spirit. ¹³ But you’ve hidden these things in your heart— I know this was your purpose: ¹⁴ If I sin, you watch me and won’t acquit me for my iniquity. ¹⁵ “‘Woe to me if I’m guilty! If I’m innocent, I cannot lift my head, because I am filled with disgrace. Look at my affliction! ¹⁶ But if I do lift up my head, you will hunt me like a lion! You will perform miracles in order to fight against me. ¹⁷ “‘You have brought new witnesses against me, you’re even more angry with me— you’ve brought fresh troops to attack me! ¹⁸ So why did you bring me out from the womb? I wish I had died, before anyone had seen me, ¹⁹ as if I had never existed; carried from the womb to the grave. ²⁰ My days are so few, aren’t they? So leave me alone, then, so I can smile a little ²¹ before I go, never to return, leaving for the land of deep darkness and shadow. ²² It’s a gloomy land, like deepest darkness; where there’s no order, and where even the brightness is like darkness.’”