Job’s Plea to God 1 UDB I detest living any longer. I will not stop saying why I am complaining. Since I am very unhappy, I will speak. BSB BSB: “I loathe my own life; I will express my complaint and speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2 UDB I will say to God, 'Do not just say that you must punish me; in addition, tell me what wrong you saw that I have done. BSB BSB: I will say to God: Do not condemn me! Let me know why You prosecute me.
3 UDB Does it please you to oppress me, to abandon me, whom you created, and, at the same time, to help wicked people to do the things that they plan to do? BSB BSB: Does it please You to oppress me, to reject the work of Your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked?
4 UDB Do you understand things the way that we humans do? BSB BSB: Do You have eyes of flesh? Do You see as man sees?
5 UDB Do you live for only a few years, like as we do? BSB BSB: Are Your days like those of a mortal, or Your years like those of a man,
6 UDB So why do you continue to search for my faults and to hunt for my sins? BSB BSB: that You should seek my iniquity and search out my sin—
7 UDB You know that I am not guilty, and that no one can rescue me from your power. BSB BSB: though You know that I am not guilty, and there is no deliverance from Your hand?
8 UDB With your hands you created me and shaped my body, but now you are deciding that you should not have done that, and you are destroying me instead. BSB BSB: Your hands shaped me and altogether formed me. Would You now turn and destroy me?
9 UDB Do not forget that you made me from a piece of clay; are you going to cause me to become soil again? BSB BSB: Please remember that You molded me like clay. Would You now return me to dust?
10 UDB You certainly formed me when I was conceived, and you put me together inside my mother's womb. BSB BSB: Did You not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese?
11 UDB You fastened my bones together with sinews, and then you covered them with flesh inside my skin. BSB BSB: You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12 UDB You have caused me to be alive; you have faithfully loved me, and you have carefully preserved me. BSB BSB: You have granted me life and loving devotion, and Your care has preserved my spirit.
13 UDB But you kept secret what you were planning to do to me; I am certain that you were planning to do these things to me. BSB BSB: Yet You concealed these things in Your heart, and I know that this was in Your mind:
14 UDB You were watching to see if I would sin, so that, if I did sin, you would refuse to forgive me. BSB BSB: If I sinned, You would take note, and would not acquit me of my iniquity.
15 UDB If I am a wicked man, I hope that terrible things will happen to me. But even if I am righteous, I still must bow my head and feel ashamed because I am very disgraced and feel miserable. 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 UDB And if I am proud, you hunt me like a lion hunts for some animal to kill, and you act powerfully to injure me. BSB BSB: Should I hold my head high, You would hunt me like a lion, and again display Your power against me.
17 UDB You constantly find more witnesses to testify that I have done what is wrong, and you continually become more angry with me. It is as though you are were always bringing new troops to attack me. BSB BSB: You produce new witnesses against me and multiply Your anger toward me. Hardships assault me in wave after wave.
18 UDB God, why did you allow me to be born? I wish had died when I was born, and that no one had ever seen me. BSB BSB: Why then did You bring me from the womb? Oh, that I had died, and no eye had seen me!
19 UDB I think it would have been better if I had been carried directly from my mother's womb to the grave than for me to live. BSB BSB: If only I had never come to be, but had been carried from the womb to the grave.
20 UDB I think that there are only a few days for me to remain alive; so allow me to be alone, in order that I may have a little peace BSB BSB: Are my days not few? Withdraw from me, that I may have a little comfort,
21 UDB before I go to the place from which I will never return, a place where it is always gloomy and very dark, BSB BSB: before I go—never to return—to a land of darkness and gloom,
22 UDB a place of darkness and dark shadows where everything is confused and where even the small light there is like darkness.'" 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.