“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 schemes of the wicked? 4 Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as humans see? 5 Are your days like the days of mortals, or your years like human 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 no one to deliver out of your hand? 8 Your hands fashioned and made me; and now you turn and destroy me.[a] 9 Remember that you fashioned me like 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 steadfast love, 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 watch 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 Bold as a lion you hunt me; you repeat your exploits against me. 17 You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your vexation toward me; you bring fresh troops against me.[b]
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?[c] Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort[d] 21 before I go, never to return, to the land of gloom and deep darkness, 22 the land of gloom[e] and chaos, where light is like darkness.”
Footnotes
a. Job 10:8 Cn Compare Gk Syr: Heb made me together all around, and you destroy me
b. Job 10:17 Cn Compare Gk: Heb toward me; changes and a troop are with me
c. Job 10:20 Cn Compare Gk Syr: Heb Are not my days few? Let him cease!
d. Job 10:20 Heb that I may brighten up a little
e. Job 10:22 Heb gloom as darkness, deep darkness
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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