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Job Continues: A Plea to God

 “I loathe my life;
I will give free utterance to my complaint;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
² I will say to God, Do not condemn me;
let me know why you contend against me.
³ Does it seem good to you to oppress,
to despise the work of your hands
and favor the designs of the wicked?
⁴ Have you eyes of flesh?
Do you see as man sees?
⁵ Are your days as the days of man,
or your years as a man's years,
⁶ that you seek out my iniquity
and search for my sin,
⁷ although you know that I am not guilty,
and there is none to deliver out of your hand?
⁸ Your hands fashioned and made me,
and now you have destroyed me altogether.
⁹ Remember that you have made me like clay;
and will you return me to the 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 steadfast love,
and your care has preserved my spirit.
¹³ Yet these things you hid in your heart;
I know that this was your purpose.
¹⁴ If I sin, you watch me
and do not acquit me of my iniquity.
¹⁵ If I am guilty, woe to me!
If I am in the right, I cannot lift up my head,
for I am filled with disgrace
and look on my affliction.
¹⁶ And were my head lifted up,^[a] you would hunt me like a lion
and again work wonders against me.
¹⁷ You renew your witnesses against me
and increase your vexation toward me;
you bring fresh troops against me.

¹⁸ “Why did you bring me out from the womb?
Would that I had died before any eye had seen me
¹⁹ and were as though I had not been,
carried from the womb to the grave.
²⁰ Are not my days few?
Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer
²¹ before I go—and I shall not return—
to the land of darkness and deep shadow,
²² the land of gloom like thick darkness,
like deep shadow without any order,
where light is as thick darkness.”

Footnotes:

1. Job 10:16 Hebrew lacks my head

Cross references:

1. Job 10:1 : [ch. 7:16; 9:21; Num. 11:15; 1 Kgs. 19:4]
2. Job 10:1 : ch. 21:4; 23:2
3. Job 10:1 : See ch. 7:11
4. Job 10:2 : ch. 9:29
5. Job 10:2 : ch. 9:3
6. Job 10:3 : ch. 13:9; Ps. 89:38
7. Job 10:3 : ch. 14:15; Ps. 138:8; Isa. 64:8
8. Job 10:3 : [ch. 9:24]
9. Job 10:4 : [John 8:15]
10. Job 10:4 : 1 Sam. 16:7
11. Job 10:5 : ch. 36:26; Ps. 77:10; [Ps. 90:4; 2 Pet. 3:8]
12. Job 10:6 : [ch. 14:16]
13. Job 10:7 : [ch. 2:3, 9]
14. Job 10:7 : Deut. 32:39; Isa. 43:13
15. Job 10:8 : Ps. 119:73
16. Job 10:9 : See ch. 4:17
17. Job 10:9 : ch. 34:15; Gen. 2:7; 3:19; Ps. 146:4; Eccles. 12:7
18. Job 10:13 : ch. 23:14; 27:11
19. Job 10:14 : ch. 13:27; 33:11; Ps. 130:3
20. Job 10:14 : ch. 9:28
21. Job 10:15 : Isa. 3:11
22. Job 10:15 : ch. 9:15
23. Job 10:15 : [Ps. 25:18]
24. Job 10:16 : ch. 28:8; Hos. 5:14; 13:7; [Isa. 38:13]
25. Job 10:16 : [ch. 5:9]
26. Job 10:17 : [ch. 16:8; Ruth 1:21]
27. Job 10:17 : [ch. 19:12]
28. Job 10:18 : ch. 3:11; [ch. 3:3]
29. Job 10:19 : Obad. 16
30. Job 10:20 : See ch. 14:1
31. Job 10:20 : See ch. 7:16
32. Job 10:20 : ch. 9:27; Ps. 39:13
33. Job 10:21 : [ch. 16:22; 2 Sam. 12:23]
34. Job 10:21 : ch. 30:26; Ps. 88:12
35. Job 10:21 : See ch. 3:5