• Job Cries Out to God

  • 1 “My soul is loathed by my life; I will abandon all restraint in myself to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
  • 2 “I will say to God, ‘Do not account me as wicked; Let me know why You contend with me.
  • 3 ‘Is it good to You that You oppress, That You reject the labor of Your hands, And cause the counsel of the wicked to shine forth?
  • 4 ‘Have You eyes of flesh? Or do You see as a mortal man sees?
  • 5 ‘Are Your days as the days of a mortal man, Or Your years as man’s years,
  • 6 That You should seek for my guilt And search after my sin?
  • 7 ‘According to Your knowledge I am indeed not wicked, Yet there is no deliverer from Your hand.
  • 8 ‘Your hands fashioned and made me altogether, And would You swallow me up?
  • 9 ‘Remember now, that You have made me as clay; And would You turn me into dust again?
  • 10 ‘Did You not pour me out like milk And curdle me like cheese,
  • 11 Clothe me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews?
  • 12 ‘You have made alongside me life and lovingkindness; And Your care has kept my spirit.
  • 13 ‘Yet these things You have concealed in Your heart; I know that this is within You:
  • 14 If I sin, then You would take note of me And would not acquit me of my guilt.
  • 15 ‘If I am wicked, woe to me! And if I am righteous, I dare not lift up my head. I am sated with disgrace—so see my misery!
  • 16 ‘Should my head be set on high, You would hunt me like a lion; And again You would show Your wonders against me.
  • 17 ‘You renew Your witnesses against me And increase Your vexation toward me; Hardship after hardship is with me.
  • 18 ‘Why then have You brought me out of the womb? Would that I had breathed my last and no eye had seen me!
  • 19 ‘I should have been as though I had not been, Carried from womb to tomb.’
  • 20 “Would He not cease for a few of my days? Withdraw from me that I may have a little cheer
  • 21 Before I go—and I shall not return— To the land of darkness and shadow of death,
  • 22 The land of utter gloom as the thick darkness itself, Of the shadow of death, without order, And which shines as the thick darkness.”