Job’s Plea to God

1My soule is cut off though I liue: I wil leaue my complaint vpon my selfe, & wil speake in the bitternesse of my soule.

2I will say vnto God, Condemne mee not: shew me, wherefore thou contendest with mee.

3Thinkest thou it good to oppresse me, and to cast off the labour of thine handes, and to fauour the counsel of the wicked?

4Hast thou carnall eyes? Or doest thou see as man seeth?

5Are thy dayes as mans dayes? Or thy yeres, as the time of man,

6That thou inquirest of mine iniquitie, and searchest out my sinne?

7Thou knowest that I can not do wickedly: for none can deliuer me out of thine hand.

8Thine handes haue made me, and fashioned mee wholy rounde about, and wilt thou destroy me?

9Remeber, I pray thee, that thou hast made me as the clay, and wilt thou bring me into dust againe?

10Hast thou not powred me out as milke? & turned me to cruds like cheese?

11Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and ioyned me together with bones and sinewes.

12Thou hast giuen me life, & grace: & thy visitation hath preserued my spirit.

13Though thou hast hid these things in thine heart, yet I knowe that it is so with thee.

14If I haue sinned, then thou wilt streightly looke vnto me, and wilt not holde mee giltlesse of mine iniquitie.

15If I haue done wickedly, wo vnto me: if I haue done righteously, I will not lift vp mine head, being full of confusion, because I see mine affliction.

16But let it increase: hunt thou me as a lyon: returne and shew thy selfe marueilous vpon me.

17Thou renuest thy plagues against me, and thou increasest thy wrath against me: changes and armies of sorowes are against me.

18Wherfore then hast thou brought me out of the wombe? Oh that I had perished, and that none eye had seene me!

19And that I were as I had not bene, but brought from the wombe to the graue!

20Are not my dayes fewe? let him cease, and leaue off from me, that I may take a litle comfort,

21Before I goe and shall not returne, euen to the land of darkenesse and shadow of death:

22Into a land, I say, darke as darknes it selfe, and into the shadow of death, where is none order, but the light is there as darkenesse.