Job 10 :: New Living Translation (NLT)

Job Frames His Plea to God

Job 10:1“I am disgusted with my life.
Let me complain freely.
My bitter soul must complain.

Job 10:2I will say to God, ‘Don’t simply condemn me—
tell me the charge you are bringing against me.

Job 10:3What do you gain by oppressing me?
Why do you reject me, the work of your own hands,
while smiling on the schemes of the wicked?

Job 10:4Are your eyes like those of a human?
Do you see things only as people see them?

Job 10:5Is your lifetime only as long as ours?
Is your life so short

Job 10:6that you must quickly probe for my guilt
and search for my sin?

Job 10:7Although you know I am not guilty,
no one can rescue me from your hands.

Job 10:8“‘You formed me with your hands; you made me,
yet now you completely destroy me.

Job 10:9Remember that you made me from dust—
will you turn me back to dust so soon?

Job 10:10You guided my conception
and formed me in the womb.[fn]

Job 10:11You clothed me with skin and flesh,
and you knit my bones and sinews together.

Job 10:12You gave me life and showed me your unfailing love.
My life was preserved by your care.

Job 10:13“‘Yet your real motive—
your true intent—

Job 10:14was to watch me, and if I sinned,
you would not forgive my guilt.

Job 10:15If I am guilty, too bad for me;
and even if I’m innocent, I can’t hold my head high,
because I am filled with shame and misery.

Job 10:16And if I hold my head high, you hunt me like a lion
and display your awesome power against me.

Job 10:17Again and again you witness against me.
You pour out your growing anger on me
and bring fresh armies against me.

Job 10:18“‘Why, then, did you deliver me from my mother’s womb?
Why didn’t you let me die at birth?

Job 10:19It would be as though I had never existed,
going directly from the womb to the grave.

Job 10:20I have only a few days left, so leave me alone,
that I may have a moment of comfort

Job 10:21before I leave—never to return—
for the land of darkness and utter gloom.

Job 10:22It is a land as dark as midnight,
a land of gloom and confusion,
where even the light is dark as midnight.’”

Hebrew You poured me out like milk / and curdled me like cheese.

For more information on this translation, see the NLT Preface.