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Job’s Plea to God

¹ I loathe my own life; I will express my complaint and speak in the bitterness of my soul.² I will say to God: Do not condemn me! Let me know why You prosecute me.³ Does it please You to oppress me, to reject the work of Your hands, and favor the schemes of the wicked?⁴ Do You have eyes of flesh? Do You see as man sees?⁵ Are Your days like those of a mortal, or Your years like those of a man,⁶ that You should seek my iniquity and search out my sin—⁷ though You know that I am not guilty, and there is no deliverance from Your hand?

⁸ Your hands shaped me and altogether formed me. Will You now turn and destroy me?⁹ Please remember that You molded me like clay. Will You now return me to dust?¹⁰ Did You not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese?¹¹ You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.¹² You have granted me life and loving devotion, and Your care has preserved my spirit.¹³ Yet You concealed these things in Your heart, and I know that this was in Your mind:

¹⁴ If I sinned, You would take note, and would not acquit me of my iniquity.¹⁵ If I am guilty, woe to me! And even if I am righteous, I cannot lift my head. I am full of shame and aware of my affliction.¹⁶ Should I hold my head high, You would hunt me like a lion, and again display Your power against me.¹⁷ You produce new witnesses against me and multiply Your anger toward me. Hardships assault me in wave after wave.¹⁸ Why then did You bring me from the womb? Oh, that I had died, and no eye had seen me!¹⁹ If only I had never come to be, but had been carried from the womb to the grave.²⁰ Are my days not few? Withdraw from me, that I may have a little comfort,²¹ before I go—never to return—to a land of darkness and gloom,²² to a land of utter darkness, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”