Chapter 10

  My soul is weary of my life: I will give free course to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.  

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  I will say unto +God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou strivest with me.  

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  Doth it please thee to oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thy hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?  

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  Hast thou eyes of flesh? or seest thou as man seeth?  

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  Are thy days as the days of a mortal? are thy years as a man's days,  

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  That thou searchest after mine iniquity, and inquirest into my sin;  

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  Since thou knowest that I am not wicked, and that there is none that delivereth out of thy hand?  

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  Thy hands have bound me together and made me as one, round about; yet dost thou swallow me up!  

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  Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as clay, and wilt bring me into dust again.  

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  Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?  

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  Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews;  

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  Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy care hath preserved my spirit;  

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  And these things didst thou hide in thy heart; I know that this was with thee.  

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  If I sinned, thou wouldest mark me, and thou wouldest not acquit me of mine iniquity.  

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  If I were wicked, woe unto me! and righteous, I will not lift up my head, being [so] full of shame, and beholding mine affliction; --  

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  And it increaseth: thou huntest me as a fierce lion; and ever again thou shewest thy marvellous power upon me.  

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  Thou renewest thy witnesses before me and increasest thy displeasure against me; successions [of evil] and a time of toil are with me.  

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  And wherefore didst thou bring me forth out of the womb? I had expired, and no eye had seen me.  

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  I should be as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.  

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  Are not my days few? cease then and let me alone, that I may revive a little,  

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  Before I go, and never to return, -- to the land of darkness and the shadow of death;  

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  A land of gloom, as darkness itself; of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as thick darkness.  

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