Job
Chapter 10

1

¹ I loathe my life. I will give myself up to complaint; I will speak from the bitterness of my soul.

2

I will say to God: Do not put me in the wrong! Let me know why you oppose me.

3

Is it a pleasure for you to oppress, to spurn the work of your hands, and smile on the plan of the wicked?

4

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

5

Are your days as the days of a mortal, and are your years as a man's lifetime,

6

That you seek for guilt in me and search after my sins,

7

Even though you know that I am not wicked, and that none can deliver me out of your hand?

8

Your hands have formed me and fashioned me; will you then turn and destroy me?

9

Oh, remember that you fashioned me from clay! Will you then bring me down to dust again?

10

Did you not pour me out as milk, and thicken me like cheese?

11

With skin and flesh you clothed me, with bones and sinews knit me together.

12

Grace and favor you granted me, and your providence has preserved my spirit.

13

Yet these things you have hidden in your heart; I know that they are your purpose:

14

If I should sin, you would keep a watch against me, and from my guilt you would not absolve me.

15

If I should be wicked, alas for me! if righteous, I dare not hold up my head, filled with ignominy and sodden with affliction!

16

Should it lift up, you hunt me like a lion: repeatedly you show your wondrous power against me,

17

You renew your attack upon me and multiply your harassment of me; in waves your troops come against me.

18

Why then did you bring me forth from the womb? I should have died and no eye have seen me.

19

I should be as though I had never lived; I should have been taken from the womb to the grave.

20

Are not the days of my life few? Let me alone, that I may recover a little

21

Before I go whence I shall not return, to the land of darkness and of gloom,

22

The black, disordered land where darkness is the only light.

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Footnotes

¹ [1] I loathe my life: this is the first verse of Job 10.

New American Bible Copyright © 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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