Job 10
10
To Find Some Skeleton in My Closet
1“I can’t stand my life—I hate it!
I’m putting it all out on the table,
all the bitterness of my life—I’m holding back nothing.”
2-7Job prayed:
“Here’s what I want to say:
Don’t, God, bring in a verdict of guilty
without letting me know the charges you’re bringing.
How does this fit into what you once called ‘good’—
giving me a hard time, spurning me,
a life you shaped by your very own hands,
and then blessing the plots of the wicked?
You don’t look at things the way we mortals do.
You’re not taken in by appearances, are you?
Unlike us, you’re not working against a deadline.
You have all eternity to work things out.
So what’s this all about, anyway—this compulsion
to dig up some dirt, to find some skeleton in my closet?
You know good and well I’m not guilty.
You also know no one can help me.
8-12“You made me like a handcrafted piece of pottery—
and now are you going to smash me to pieces?
Don’t you remember how beautifully you worked my clay?
Will you reduce me now to a mud pie?
Oh, that marvel of conception as you stirred together
semen and ovum—
What a miracle of skin and bone,
muscle and brain!
You gave me life itself, and incredible love.
You watched and guarded every breath I took.
13-17“But you never told me about this part.
I should have known that there was more to it—
That if I so much as missed a step, you’d notice and pounce,
wouldn’t let me get by with a thing.
If I’m truly guilty, I’m doomed.
But if I’m innocent, it’s no better—I’m still doomed.
My belly is full of bitterness.
I’m up to my ears in a swamp of affliction.
I try to make the best of it, try to brave it out,
but you’re too much for me,
relentless, like a lion on the prowl.
You line up fresh witnesses against me.
You compound your anger
and pile on the grief and pain!
18-22“So why did you have me born?
I wish no one had ever laid eyes on me!
I wish I’d never lived—a stillborn,
buried without ever having breathed.
Isn’t it time to call it quits on my life?
Can’t you let up, and let me smile just once
Before I die and am buried,
before I’m nailed into my coffin, sealed in the ground,
And banished for good to the land of the dead,
blind in the final dark?”
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Job 10: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Job 10
10
Job Bemoans His Condition
1My soul is weary of my life;
I will leave my complaint upon myself;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2I will say unto God, Do not condemn me;
show me wherefore thou contendest with me.
3 Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress,
that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands,
and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?
4Hast thou eyes of flesh?
Or seest thou as man seeth?
5 Are thy days as the days of man?
Are thy years as man's days,
6that thou inquirest after mine iniquity,
and searchest after my sin?
7Thou knowest that I am not wicked;
and there is none that can deliver out of thine hand.
8Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about;
yet thou dost destroy me.
9Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay;
and wilt thou bring me into dust again?
10Hast thou not poured me out as milk,
and curdled me like cheese?
11Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh,
and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.
12Thou hast granted me life and favor,
and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.
13And these things hast thou hid in thine heart:
I know that this is with thee.
14If I sin, then thou markest me,
and thou wilt not acquit me from mine iniquity.
15If I be wicked, woe unto me;
and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head.
I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction;
16for it increaseth.
Thou huntest me as a fierce lion:
and again thou showest thyself marvelous upon me.
17Thou renewest thy witnesses against me, and increasest thine indignation upon me;
changes and war are against me.
18Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb?
Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!
19I should have been as though I had not been;
I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
20 Are not my days few? Cease then,
and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little,
21before I go whence I shall not return,
even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death;
22a land of darkness, as darkness itself;
and of the shadow of death, without any order,
and where the light is as darkness.
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King James Version 1611, spelling, punctuation and text formatting modernized by ABS in 1962; typesetting © 2010 American Bible Society.