Job’s Plea to God 1 CPDV My soul is weary of my life. I will release my words against myself. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. BSB BSB: “I loathe my own life; I will express my complaint and speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2 CPDV I will say to God: Do not be willing to condemn me. Reveal to me why you judge me this way. BSB BSB: I will say to God: Do not condemn me! Let me know why You prosecute me.
3 CPDV Does it seem good to you, if you find fault with me and oppress me, the work of your own hands, and assist the counsel of the impious? BSB BSB: Does it please You to oppress me, to reject the work of Your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked?
4 CPDV Do you have bodily eyes? Or, just as man sees, will you see? BSB BSB: Do You have eyes of flesh? Do You see as man sees?
5 CPDV Are your days just like the days of man, and are your years as the times of humans, BSB BSB: Are Your days like those of a mortal, or Your years like those of a man,
6 CPDV so that you would inquire about my iniquity and examine my sin? BSB BSB: that You should seek my iniquity and search out my sin—
7 CPDV And you know that I have done nothing impious, yet there is no one who can deliver from your hand. BSB BSB: though You know that I am not guilty, and there is no deliverance from Your hand?
8 CPDV Your hands have made me and formed me all around, and, in this way, do you suddenly throw me away? BSB BSB: Your hands shaped me and altogether formed me. Would You now turn and destroy me?
9 CPDV Remember, I ask you, that you have fashioned me like clay, and you will reduce me to dust. BSB BSB: Please remember that You molded me like clay. Would You now return me to dust?
10 CPDV Have you not extracted me like milk and curdled me like cheese? BSB BSB: Did You not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese?
11 CPDV You have clothed me with skin and flesh. You have put me together with bones and nerves. BSB BSB: You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12 CPDV You have assigned to me life and mercy, and your visitation has preserved my spirit. BSB BSB: You have granted me life and loving devotion, and Your care has preserved my spirit.
13 CPDV Though you may conceal this in your heart, yet I know that you remember everything. BSB BSB: Yet You concealed these things in Your heart, and I know that this was in Your mind:
14 CPDV If I have sinned, and you have spared me for an hour, why do you not endure me to be clean from my iniquity? BSB BSB: If I sinned, You would take note, and would not acquit me of my iniquity.
15 CPDV And if I should be impious, woe to me, and if I should be just, I will not lift up my head, being drenched with affliction and misery. BSB BSB: If I am guilty, woe to me! And even if I am righteous, I cannot lift my head. I am full of shame and aware of my affliction.
16 CPDV And because of pride, you will seize me like a lioness, and having returned, you torment me to an extraordinary degree. BSB BSB: Should I hold my head high, You would hunt me like a lion, and again display Your power against me.
17 CPDV You renew your testimony against me, and you multiply your wrath against me, and these punishments make war within me. BSB BSB: You produce new witnesses against me and multiply Your anger toward me. Hardships assault me in wave after wave.
18 CPDV Why did you lead me out of the womb? If only I had been consumed, so that no eye would ever see me! BSB BSB: Why then did You bring me from the womb? Oh, that I had died, and no eye had seen me!
19 CPDV I should have been as if I had not been: transferred from the womb to the tomb. BSB BSB: If only I had never come to be, but had been carried from the womb to the grave.
20 CPDV Will not my few days be completed soon? Release me, therefore, so that I may lament my sorrows a little, BSB BSB: Are my days not few? Withdraw from me, that I may have a little comfort,
21 CPDV before I depart and return no more to a land that is dark and covered with the fog of death, BSB BSB: before I go—never to return—to a land of darkness and gloom,
22 CPDV a land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death, and nothing else but everlasting horror, dwells. BSB BSB: to a land of utter darkness, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.