Job's Plea to God

1My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint on myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

2I will say to God, Do not condemn me; show me why you contend with me.

3Is it good to you that you should oppress, that you should despise the work of your hands, and shine on the counsel of the wicked?

4Have you eyes of flesh? or see you as man sees?

5Are your days as the days of man? are your years as man's days,

6That you enquire after my iniquity, and search after my sin?

7You know that I am not wicked; and there is none that can deliver out of your hand.

8Your hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet you do destroy me.

9Remember, I beseech you, that you have made me as the clay; and will you bring me into dust again?

10Have you not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?

11You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and have fenced me with bones and sinews.

12You have granted me life and favor, and your visitation has preserved my spirit.

13And these things have you hid in your heart: I know that this is with you.

14If I sin, then you mark me, and you will not acquit me from my iniquity.

15If I be wicked, woe to me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see you my affliction;

16For it increases. You hunt me as a fierce lion: and again you show yourself marvelous on me.

17You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your indignation on me; changes and war are against me.

18Why then have you 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.

20Are not my days few? cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little,

21Before I go from where 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.