Job 10

Common English Bible

10 I loathe my life; I will let loose my complaint;
    I will speak out of my own bitterness.
² I will say to God, Don’t declare me guilty;
    tell me what you are accusing me of doing.
³ Does it seem good to you that you oppress me,
    that you reject the work of your hands
    and cause the purpose of sinners to shine?
⁴ Do you have physical eyes;
    do you see like a human?
⁵ Are your days like those of a human,
    your years like years of a human,
⁶         that you search for my wrongdoing
        and seek my sin?
⁷ You know that I’m not guilty,
    yet no one delivers me from your power.

⁸ Your hands fashioned and made me;
    yet you want to destroy me utterly.
⁹ Remember that you made me from^[a] clay,
    and you will return me to dust.
¹⁰ Didn’t you pour me out like milk,
    curdle me like cheese?
¹¹ You clothed me with skin and flesh,
    wove me from bones and sinews.
¹² Life and kindness you gave me,
    and you oversaw and preserved my breath.

¹³ These things you hid in your heart;
    I know this is the case with you.
¹⁴ If I sin and you observe me,
    you won’t consider me innocent of wrongdoing.
¹⁵ If I were guilty, doom to me;
    I’m innocent, but can’t lift my head,
    full of shame and facing my misery.
¹⁶ I could boast like a lion, and you would hunt me;
    you would do awesome things to me again.
¹⁷ You continue to send your witnesses against me
    and increase your anger toward me,
        a swift army against me.^[b]

¹⁸ Why did you let me emerge from the womb?
    I wish I had died without any eye seeing me.
¹⁹ Then I would be just as if I hadn’t existed,
    taken from the belly to the grave.
²⁰ Aren’t my few days coming to an end?
Look away from me so I can brighten up a little
²¹     before I go and don’t return
    to a land of deepest darkness,
²²     a land whose light is like gloom,
        utter darkness and confusion,
        such that light shines like gloom.