Job 7
7
There’s Nothing to My Life
1-6“Human life is a struggle, isn’t it?
It’s a life sentence to hard labor.
Like field hands longing for quitting time
and working stiffs with nothing to hope for but payday,
I’m given a life that meanders and goes nowhere—
months of aimlessness, nights of misery!
I go to bed and think, ‘How long till I can get up?’
I toss and turn as the night drags on—and I’m fed up!
I’m covered with maggots and scabs.
My skin gets scaly and hard, then oozes with pus.
My days come and go swifter than the click of knitting needles,
and then the yarn runs out—an unfinished life!
7-10“God, don’t forget that I’m only a wisp of air!
These eyes have had their last look at goodness.
And your eyes have seen the last of me;
even while you’re looking, there’ll be nothing left to look at.
When a cloud evaporates, it’s gone for good;
those who go to the grave never come back.
They don’t return to visit their families;
never again will friends drop in for coffee.
11-16“And so I’m not keeping one bit of this quiet,
I’m laying it all out on the table;
my complaining to high heaven is bitter, but honest.
Are you going to put a muzzle on me,
the way you quiet the sea and still the storm?
If I say, ‘I’m going to bed, then I’ll feel better.
A little nap will lift my spirits,’
You come and so scare me with nightmares
and frighten me with ghosts
That I’d rather strangle in the sheets
than face this kind of life any longer.
I hate this life! Who needs any more of this?
Let me alone! There’s nothing to my life—it’s nothing
but smoke.
17-21“What are mortals anyway, that you bother with them,
that you even give them the time of day?
That you check up on them every morning,
looking in on them to see how they’re doing?
Let up on me, will you?
Can’t you even let me spit in peace?
Even suppose I’d sinned—how would that hurt you?
You’re responsible for every human being.
Don’t you have better things to do than pick on me?
Why make a federal case out of me?
Why don’t you just forgive my sins
and start me off with a clean slate?
The way things are going, I’ll soon be dead.
You’ll look high and low, but I won’t be around.”
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Job 7: 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 7
7
Job Remonstrates with God
1 Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth?
Are not his days also like the days of a hireling?
2As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow,
and as a hireling looketh for the reward of his work;
3so am I made to possess months of vanity,
and wearisome nights are appointed to me.
4When I lie down, I say,
When shall I arise, and the night be gone?
And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.
5My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust;
my skin is broken, and become loathsome.
6My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle,
and are spent without hope.
7O remember that my life is wind:
mine eye shall no more see good.
8The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more:
thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.
9 As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away;
so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.
10He shall return no more to his house,
neither shall his place know him any more.
11Therefore I will not refrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12 Am I a sea, or a whale,
that thou settest a watch over me?
13When I say, My bed shall comfort me,
my couch shall ease my complaint;
14then thou scarest me with dreams,
and terrifiest me through visions:
15so that my soul chooseth strangling,
and death rather than my life.
16I loathe it; I would not live alway:
let me alone; for my days are vanity.
17 #
Ps 8.4; 144.3. What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him?
and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?
18and that thou shouldest visit him every morning,
and try him every moment?
19How long wilt thou not depart from me,
nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?
20I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee,
O thou preserver of men?
Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee,
so that I am a burden to myself?
21And why dost thou not pardon my transgression,
and take away mine iniquity?
For now shall I sleep in the dust;
and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.
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King James Version 1611, spelling, punctuation and text formatting modernized by ABS in 1962; typesetting © 2010 American Bible Society.