JOB 10 (NIV)
- "I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.
- I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me.
- Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, whule you smile on the schemes of the wicked?
- Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees?
- Are your days like those of a mortal or your years like those of a man,
- that you must search out my faults and probe after my sin -
- though you know that I am not guilty and that no one can rescue me from your hand?
- "Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me?
- Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again?
- Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese,
- clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews?
- You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.
- "But this is what you concealed in your heart, and I know that this was in your mind:
- If I sinned, you would be watching me and would not let my offense go unpunished.
- If I am guilty - woe to me! Even if I am innocent - I cannot lift my head, for I am full of shame and drowned in my affliction.
- If I hold my head high, you stalk me like a lion and again display your awesome power against me.
- You bring new witnesses against me and increase your anger toward me; your forces come against me wave upon wave.
- "Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me.
- If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!
- Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me so I can have a moment's joy
- before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and deep shadow,
- to the land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.
