Job
10
- "I loathe my very life; therefore I
will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my
soul.
- I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but
tell me what charges you have against me.
- Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn
the work of your hands, while you smile on the schemes of the wicked ?
- Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as
a mortal sees ?
- Are your days like those of a mortal or
your years like those of a man,
- that you must search out my faults and probe
after my sin --
- though you know that I am not guilty and
that no one can rescue me from your hand ?
- "Your hands shaped me and made me.
Will you now turn and destroy me ?
- Remember that you molded me like clay. Will
you now turn me to dust again ?
- Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle
me like cheese,
- clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me
together with bones and sinews ?
- You gave me life and showed me kindness,
and in your providence watched over my spirit.
- "But this is what you concealed in
your heart, and I know that this was in your mind:
- If I sinned, you would be watching me and
would not let my offense go unpunished.
- If I am guilty--woe to me! Even if I am
innocent, I cannot lift my head, for I am full of shame and drowned in my
affliction.
- If I hold my head high, you stalk me like
a lion and again display your awesome power against me.
- You bring new witnesses against me and increase
your anger toward me; your forces come against me wave upon wave.
- "Why then did you bring me out of the
womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me.
- If only I had never come into being, or
had been carried straight from the womb to the grave !
- Are not my few days almost over? Turn away
from me so I can have a moment's joy
- before I go to the place of no return, to
the land of gloom and deep shadow,
- to the land of deepest night, of deep shadow
and disorder, where even the light is like darkness."
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