New Revised Standard NRS
The Message Bible MSG
1 "I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
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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."
2 I will say to God, Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me.
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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.
3 Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked?
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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?
4 Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as humans see?
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You don't look at things the way we mortals do. You're not taken in by appearances, are you?
5 Are your days like the days of mortals, or your years like human years,
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Unlike us, you're not working against a deadline. You have all eternity to work things out.
6 that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin,
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So what's this all about, anyway - this compulsion to dig up some dirt, to find some skeleton in my closet?
7 although you know that I am not guilty, and there is no one to deliver out of your hand?
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You know good and well I'm not guilty. You also know no one can help me.
8 Your hands fashioned and made me; and now you turn and destroy me.
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"You made me like a handcrafted piece of pottery - and now are you going to smash me to pieces?
9 Remember that you fashioned me like clay; and will you turn me to dust again?
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Don't you remember how beautifully you worked my clay? Will you reduce me now to a mud pie?
10 Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?
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Oh, that marvel of conception as you stirred together semen and ovum -
11 You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.
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What a miracle of skin and bone, muscle and brain!
12 You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.
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You gave me life itself, and incredible love. You watched and guarded every breath I took.
13 Yet these things you hid in your heart; I know that this was your purpose.
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"But you never told me about this part. I should have known that there was more to it -
14 If I sin, you watch me, and do not acquit me of my iniquity.
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That if I so much as missed a step, you'd notice and pounce, wouldn't let me get by with a thing.
15 If I am wicked, woe to me! If I am righteous, I cannot lift up my head, for I am filled with disgrace and look upon my affliction.
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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.
16 Bold as a lion you hunt me; you repeat your exploits against me.
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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.
17 You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your vexation toward me; you bring fresh troops against me.
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You line up fresh witnesses against me. You compound your anger and pile on the grief and pain!
18 "Why did you bring me forth from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me,
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"So why did you have me born? I wish no one had ever laid eyes on me!
19 and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave.
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I wish I'd never lived - a stillborn, buried without ever having breathed.
20 Are not the days of my life few? Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort
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Isn't it time to call it quits on my life? Can't you let up, and let me smile just once
21 before I go, never to return, to the land of gloom and deep darkness,
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Before I die and am buried, before I'm nailed into my coffin, sealed in the ground,
22 the land of gloom and chaos, where light is like darkness."
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And banished for good to the land of the dead, blind in the final dark?"
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.