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Job Asks God to Acquit Him

10 “I am disgusted with living,
    so I’m going to talk about my complaint freely.
        I’ll speak out from the bitterness of my soul.
I’ll say to God,
    ‘Don’t condemn me!
        Let me know why you are fighting me.
Does it delight you to oppress
    or despise what you have made,
        while you smile at the plans of the wicked?[a]
Do you have eyes made of flesh?
    Can you look at things as humans do?
Can you live only as long as a human being?
    Or live the years[b] of a mortal man?

“‘For you seek out my iniquity
    and search for my sin.
Although you know that I’m not guilty,
    there’s no one to deliver me from you![c]
Your hands formed and fashioned me,
    but then you have destroyed me all at once on all sides.

“‘Please remember that you’ve made me like clay
    and you’ll return me to dust.
10 Didn’t you pour me out like milk
    and let me congeal like cheese?
11 You covered me with skin and flesh,
    weaving me together with bones and sinews.
12 You gave life and gracious love to me;
    your providential care has preserved my spirit.
13 But you’ve hidden these things in your heart—
    I know this was your purpose:[d]
14 If I sin, you watch me
    and won’t acquit me for my iniquity.

15 “‘Woe to me if I’m guilty!
    If I’m innocent, I cannot lift my head,
because I am filled with disgrace.
    Look at my affliction!
16 But if I do lift up my head,
    you will hunt me like a lion!
        You will perform miracles in order to fight against me.

17 “‘You have brought new witnesses against me,
    you’re even more angry with me—
        you’ve brought fresh troops to attack me!
18 So why did you bring me out from the womb?
    I wish I had died, before anyone had seen me,
19 as if I had never existed;
    carried from the womb to the grave.
20 My days are so few, aren’t they?
    So leave me alone, then,
        so I can smile a little
21 before I go, never to return,
    leaving for the land of deep darkness and shadow.
22 It’s a gloomy land, like deepest darkness;
    where there’s no order,
        and where even[e] the brightness is like darkness.’”

Footnotes

  1. Job 10:3 Lit. you cause the plans of the wicked to shine
  2. Job 10:5 Lit. days
  3. Job 10:7 Lit. from your hand
  4. Job 10:13 Or was in you
  5. Job 10:22 The Heb. lacks even