Job 10
Complete Jewish Bible
10 “I am just worn out.
“By my life [I swear],
I will never abandon my complaint;
I will speak out in my soul’s bitterness.
2 I will say to God, ‘Don’t condemn me!
Tell me why you are contending with me.
3 Do you gain some advantage from oppressing,
from spurning what your own hands made,
from shining on the schemes of the wicked?
4 Do you have eyes of flesh?
Do you see as humans see?
5 Are your days like the days of mortals?
Are your years like human years,
6 that you have to seek my guilt
and search out my sin?
7 You know that I won’t be condemned,
yet no one can rescue me from your power.
8 Your own hands shaped me, they made me;
so why do you turn and destroy me?
9 Please remember that you made me, like clay;
will you return me to dust?
10 Didn’t you pour me out like milk,
then let me thicken like cheese?
11 You clothed me with skin and flesh
you knit me together with bones and sinews.
12 You granted me life and grace;
your careful attention preserved my spirit.
13 “‘Yet you hid these things in your heart;
I know what your secret purpose was —
14 to watch until I would sin
and then not absolve me of my guilt.
15 If I am wicked, woe to me! —
but if righteous, I still don’t dare raise my head,
because I am so filled with shame,
so soaked in my misery.
16 You rise up to hunt me like a lion,
and you keep treating me in such peculiar ways.
17 You keep producing fresh witnesses against me,
your anger against me keeps growing,
your troops assail me, wave after wave.
18 “‘Why did you bring me out of the womb?
I wish I had died there where no eye could see me.
19 I would have been as if I had never existed,
I would have been carried from womb to grave.
20 Aren’t my days few? So stop!
Leave me alone, so I can cheer up a little
21 before I go to the place of no return,
to the land of darkness and death-dark gloom,
22 a land of gloom like darkness itself,
of dense darkness and utter disorder,
where even the light is dark.’”
Job 10
EasyEnglish Bible
Job continues to speak
10 I do not want to live any longer.
I must continue to complain.
I am very upset and I have to speak about it.
2 This is what I will say to God:
“Do not say that I am guilty.
Tell me what bad things you think I have done.
3 Your own hands created me.
So you should not be cruel to me. It is not right.
Instead, you are kind to wicked people.
You help them to do the bad things that they want to do.
4 Do you see things as people see them?
Are your eyes only like human eyes?[a]
5 Is your life like a human life?
It is surely not as short as that!
6 So why do you want to discover all my sins?
Why do you hurry to do that?
7 You know that I am not guilty.
But you also know that no one can save me from your power.
8 Your own hands have made me who I am.
But now you are completely destroying me.
9 Remember that you made me,
like someone who uses clay to make things.
Will you now make me become dust again?
10 You poured me like milk into my mother.
There you put my body together,
like milk that becomes cheese.
11 You joined my bones together,
and you covered them with skin.
12 You gave me life and you loved me faithfully.
You took care of me and you kept me safe.
13 But now I know what you have been thinking.
I have discovered your secret.
14 You were watching me to see if I did wrong things.
Then you would refuse to forgive me.
15 If I am guilty of sin,
that brings terrible trouble to me.
But if I am righteous,
I still feel ashamed.
Whatever I do, I have nothing but shame
and my life is full of trouble.
16 If I try to be brave,
you chase me like a hungry lion.
You show your power to hurt me.
17 You find more reasons to attack me.
You become more and more angry with me.
You attack me with even greater power.
18 Why did you let me be born?
I should have died before anyone saw me.
19 It would have been better if I had not been born.
Or they should have put me in my grave,
immediately after my birth.
20 I will only live for a few more days.
So leave me alone! Then I may be happy for a moment.
21 I will soon go to the dark place where there is no hope.
I will never come back from that place.
22 I will go to that very dark place where there are only shadows.
In that place, it is still dark when the light shines. ” ’
Footnotes
- 10:4 Job is asking God if he really sees what is true. Perhaps God is making a mistake when he says that Job is guilty.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.
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