Job 10

¹I loathe my life ; I will give free utterance to my complaint ; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul .

²I will say to God , Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me.

³Does it seem good to you to oppress , to despise the work of your hands and favor the designs of the wicked ?

⁴Have you eyes of flesh ? Do you see as man sees ?

⁵Are your days as the days of man , or your years as a man’s years ,

⁶that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin ,

⁷although you know that I am not guilty , and there is none to deliver out of your hand ?

⁸Your hands fashioned and made me, and now you have destroyed me altogether .

⁹Remember that you have made me like clay; and will you return me to the dust ?

¹⁰Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese ?

¹¹You clothed me with skin and flesh , and knit me together with bones and sinews .

¹²You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit .

¹³Yet these things you hid in your heart ; I know that this was your purpose.

¹⁴If I sin , you watch me and do not acquit me of my iniquity .

¹⁵If I am guilty , woe to me! If I am in the right , I cannot lift up my head , for I am filled with disgrace and look on my affliction .

¹⁶And were my head lifted up , you would hunt a lion and again work wonders against me.

¹⁷You renew your witnesses against me and increase your vexation toward me; you bring fresh troops against me.

¹⁸Why did you bring me out from the womb ? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me

¹⁹and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave .

²⁰Are not my days few ? Then cease , and leave me alone , that I may find a little cheer

²¹before I go —and I shall not return — to the land of darkness and deep shadow ,

²²the land of gloom like thick darkness , like deep shadow without any order , where light is as thick darkness .