Job 10
Good News Translation
10 I am tired of living.
Listen to my bitter complaint.
2 Don't condemn me, God.
Tell me! What is the charge against me?
3 Is it right for you to be so cruel?
To despise what you yourself have made?
And then to smile on the schemes of wicked people?
4 Do you see things as we do?
5 Is your life as short as ours?
6 Then why do you track down all my sins
and hunt down every fault I have?
7 (A)You know that I am not guilty,
that no one can save me from you.
8 Your hands formed and shaped me,
and now[a] those same hands destroy me.
9 Remember that you made me from clay;[b]
are you going to crush me back to dust?
10 (B)You gave my father strength to beget me;
you made me grow in my mother's womb.
11 You formed my body with bones and sinews
and covered the bones with muscles and skin.
12 You have given me life and constant love,
and your care has kept me alive.
13 But now I know that all that time
you were secretly planning to harm me.
14 You were watching to see if I would sin,
so that you could refuse to forgive me.
15 As soon as I sin, I'm in trouble with you,
but when I do right, I get no credit.
I am miserable and covered with shame.[c]
16 If I have any success at all,
you hunt me down like a lion;
to hurt me you even work miracles.
17 You always have some witness against me;
your anger toward me grows and grows;
you always plan some new attack.
18 Why, God, did you let me be born?
I should have died before anyone saw me.
19 To go from the womb straight to the grave
would have been as good as never existing.
20 Isn't my life almost over? Leave me alone!
Let me enjoy the time I have left.
21 I am going soon and will never come back—
going to a land that is dark and gloomy,
22 a land of darkness, shadows, and confusion,
where the light itself is darkness.
Job 10
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Job: I Loathe My Life
10 “I loathe my life;
I will give free utterance to my complaint;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.(A)
2 I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn me;
let me know why you contend against me.(B)
3 Does it seem good to you to oppress,
to despise the work of your hands
and favor the schemes of the wicked?(C)
4 Do you have eyes of flesh?
Do you see as humans see?(D)
5 Are your days like the days of mortals
or your years like human years,(E)
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?(F)
8 Your hands fashioned and made me,
and now you turn and destroy me.[a](G)
9 Remember that you fashioned me like clay,
and will you turn me to dust again?(H)
10 Did you not pour me out like milk
and curdle me like cheese?(I)
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.(J)
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.(K)
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.(L)
16 Bold as a lion you hunt me;
you repeat your exploits against me.(M)
17 You renew your witnesses against me
and increase your vexation toward me;
you bring fresh troops against me.[b](N)
18 “ ‘Why did you bring me forth from the womb?
Would that I had died before any eye had seen me(O)
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](P)
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
Job 10
The Message
To Find Some Skeleton in My Closet
10 “I can’t stand my life—I hate it!
I’m putting it all out on the table,
all the bitterness of my life—I’m holding back nothing.”
2-7 Job prayed:
“Here’s what I want to say:
Don’t, God, bring in a verdict of guilty
without letting me know the charges you’re bringing.
How does this fit into what you once called ‘good’—
giving me a hard time, spurning me,
a life you shaped by your very own hands,
and then blessing the plots of the wicked?
You don’t look at things the way we mortals do.
You’re not taken in by appearances, are you?
Unlike us, you’re not working against a deadline.
You have all eternity to work things out.
So what’s this all about, anyway—this compulsion
to dig up some dirt, to find some skeleton in my closet?
You know good and well I’m not guilty.
You also know no one can help me.
8-12 “You made me like a handcrafted piece of pottery—
and now are you going to smash me to pieces?
Don’t you remember how beautifully you worked my clay?
Will you reduce me now to a mud pie?
Oh, that marvel of conception as you stirred together
semen and ovum—
What a miracle of skin and bone,
muscle and brain!
You gave me life itself, and incredible love.
You watched and guarded every breath I took.
13-17 “But you never told me about this part.
I should have known that there was more to it—
That if I so much as missed a step, you’d notice and pounce,
wouldn’t let me get by with a thing.
If I’m truly guilty, I’m doomed.
But if I’m innocent, it’s no better—I’m still doomed.
My belly is full of bitterness.
I’m up to my ears in a swamp of affliction.
I try to make the best of it, try to brave it out,
but you’re too much for me,
relentless, like a lion on the prowl.
You line up fresh witnesses against me.
You compound your anger
and pile on the grief and pain!
18-22 “So why did you have me born?
I wish no one had ever laid eyes on me!
I wish I’d never lived—a stillborn,
buried without ever having breathed.
Isn’t it time to call it quits on my life?
Can’t you let up, and let me smile just once
Before I die and am buried,
before I’m nailed into my coffin, sealed in the ground,
And banished for good to the land of the dead,
blind in the final dark?”
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson