Job 10

Patriarchs

Job Says He Loathes His Life

1

“I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

2

I will say to God, Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me.

3

Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the designs of the wicked?

4

Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as man sees?

5

Are your days as the days of man, or your years as man’s years,

6

that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin,

7

although you know that I am not guilty, and there is none to deliver out of your hand?

8

Your hands fashioned and made me; and now you turn about and destroy me.

9

Remember that you have made me of clay; and will you turn me to dust again?

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 mercy; and your care has preserved my spirit.

13

Yet these things you hid in your heart; I know that this was your purpose.

14

If I sin, you mark me, and do not acquit me of my iniquity.

15

If I am wicked, woe to me! If I am righteous, I cannot lift up my head, for I am filled with disgrace and look upon my affliction.

16

And if I lift myself up, you hunt me like a lion, and again work wonders against me;

17

you renew your witnesses against me, and increase your vexation toward me; you bring fresh hosts against me.

18

“Why did you bring me forth from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me,

19

and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave.

20

Are not the days of my life few? Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort

21

before I go from where I shall not return, to the land of gloom and deep darkness,

22

the land of gloom and chaos, where light is as darkness.”