The Message Bible MSG
World English Bible WEB
1 I can't stand my life - I hate it! -I'm putting it all out on the table, all the bitterness of my life - I'm holding back nothing."
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"My soul is weary of my life; I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2 Job prayed: "Here's what I want to say: Don't, God, bring in a verdict of guilty without letting me know the charges you're bringing.
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I will tell God, 'Do not condemn me, Show me why you contend with me.
3 How does this fit into what you once called 'good' - giving me a hard time, spurning me, a life you shaped by your very own hands, and then blessing the plots of the wicked?
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Is it good to you that you should oppress, That you should despise the work of your hands, And smile on the counsel of the wicked?
4 You don't look at things the way we mortals do. You're not taken in by appearances, are you?
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Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as man sees?
5 Unlike us, you're not working against a deadline. You have all eternity to work things out.
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Are your days as the days of mortals, Or your years as man's years,
6 So what's this all about, anyway - this compulsion to dig up some dirt, to find some skeleton in my closet?
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That you inquire after my iniquity, And search after my sin?
7 You know good and well I'm not guilty. You also know no one can help me.
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Although you know that I am not wicked, There is no one who can deliver out of your hand.
8 "You made me like a handcrafted piece of pottery - and now are you going to smash me to pieces?
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'Your hands have framed me and fashioned me altogether; Yet you destroy me.
9 Don't you remember how beautifully you worked my clay? Will you reduce me now to a mud pie?
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Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?
10 Oh, that marvel of conception as you stirred together semen and ovum -
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Haven't you poured me out like milk, And curdled me like cheese?
11 What a miracle of skin and bone, muscle and brain!
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You have clothed me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews.
12 You gave me life itself, and incredible love. You watched and guarded every breath I took.
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You have granted me life and lovingkindness. Your visitation has preserved my spirit.
13 "But you never told me about this part. I should have known that there was more to it -
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Yet you hid these things in your heart. I know that this is with you:
14 That if I so much as missed a step, you'd notice and pounce, wouldn't let me get by with a thing.
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If I sin, then you mark me. You will not acquit me from my iniquity.
15 If I'm truly guilty, I'm doomed. But if I'm innocent, it's no better - I'm still doomed. My belly is full of bitterness. I'm up to my ears in a swamp of affliction.
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If I am wicked, woe to me. If I am righteous, I still shall not lift up my head, Being filled with disgrace, And conscious of my affliction.
16 I try to make the best of it, try to brave it out, but you're too much for me, relentless, like a lion on the prowl.
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If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me.
17 You line up fresh witnesses against me. You compound your anger and pile on the grief and pain!
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You renew your witnesses against me, And increase your indignation on me. Changes and warfare are with me.
18 "So why did you have me born? I wish no one had ever laid eyes on me!
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"'Why, then, have you brought me forth out of the womb? I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me.
19 I wish I'd never lived - a stillborn, buried without ever having breathed.
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I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
20 Isn't it time to call it quits on my life? Can't you let up, and let me smile just once
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Aren't my days few? Cease then, Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,
21 Before I die and am buried, before I'm nailed into my coffin, sealed in the ground,
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Before I go where I shall not return from, To the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
22 And banished for good to the land of the dead, blind in the final dark?"
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The land dark as midnight, Of the shadow of death, without any order, Where the light is as midnight.'"