Job 10

International Standard Version

⁶ “‘For you seek out my iniquity
    and search for my sin.
⁷ Although you know that I’m not guilty,
    there’s no one to deliver me from you!^[c]
8 Your hands formed and fashioned me,
    but then you have destroyed me all at once on all sides.

⁹ “‘Please remember that you’ve made me like clay
    and you’ll return me to dust.
¹⁰ Didn’t you pour me out like milk
    and let me congeal like cheese?
¹¹ You covered me with skin and flesh,
    weaving me together with bones and sinews.
¹² You gave life and gracious love to me;
    your providential care has preserved my spirit.
¹³ But you’ve hidden these things in your heart—
    I know this was your purpose:^[d]
14 If I sin, you watch me
    and won’t acquit me for my iniquity.

¹⁵ “‘Woe to me if I’m guilty!
    If I’m innocent, I cannot lift my head,
because I am filled with disgrace.
    Look at my affliction!
¹⁶ But if I do lift up my head,
    you will hunt me like a lion!
        You will perform miracles in order to fight against me.

¹⁷ “‘You have brought new witnesses against me,
    you’re even more angry with me—
        you’ve brought fresh troops to attack me!
¹⁸ So why did you bring me out from the womb?
    I wish I had died, before anyone had seen me,
¹⁹ as if I had never existed;
    carried from the womb to the grave.
²⁰ My days are so few, aren’t they?
    So leave me alone, then,
        so I can smile a little
²¹ before I go, never to return,
    leaving for the land of deep darkness and shadow.
²² It’s a gloomy land, like deepest darkness;
    where there’s no order,
        and where even^[e] the brightness is like darkness.’”