Job Continues: A Plea to God

1“I loathe my life;

I will give free utterance to my complaint;

I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

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

let me know why you contend against me.

3Does it seem good to you to oppress,

to despise the work of your hands

and favor the designs of the wicked?

4Have you eyes of flesh?

Do you see as man sees?

5Are your days as the days of man,

or your years as a man's years,

6that you seek out my iniquity

and search for my sin,

7although you know that I am not guilty,

and there is none to deliver out of your hand?

8Your hands fashioned and made me,

and now you have destroyed me altogether.

9Remember that you have made me like clay;

and will you return me to the dust?

10Did you not pour me out like milk

and curdle me like cheese?

11You clothed me with skin and flesh,

and knit me together with bones and sinews.

12You have granted me life and steadfast love,

and your care has preserved my spirit.

13Yet these things you hid in your heart;

I know that this was your purpose.

14If I sin, you watch me

and do not acquit me of my iniquity.

15If I am guilty, woe to me!

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

for I am filled with disgrace

and look on my affliction.

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

and again work wonders against me.

17You renew your witnesses against me

and increase your vexation toward me;

you bring fresh troops against me.

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

Would that I had died before any eye had seen me

19and were as though I had not been,

carried from the womb to the grave.

20Are not my days few?

Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer

21before I go—and I shall not return—

to the land of darkness and deep shadow,

22the land of gloom like thick darkness,

like deep shadow without any order,

where light is as thick darkness.”