Job 7:16-21

The Message

^11-16 “And so I’m not keeping one bit of this quiet,
    I’m laying it all out on the table;
    my complaining to high heaven is bitter, but honest.
Are you going to put a muzzle on me,
    the way you quiet the sea and still the storm?
If I say, ‘I’m going to bed, then I’ll feel better.
    A little nap will lift my spirits,’
You come and so scare me with nightmares
    and frighten me with ghosts
That I’d rather strangle in the sheets
    than face this kind of life any longer.
I hate this life! Who needs any more of this?
    Let me alone! There’s nothing to my life—it’s nothing
        but smoke.

^17-21 “What are mortals anyway, that you bother with them,
    that you even give them the time of day?
That you check up on them every morning,
    looking in on them to see how they’re doing?
Let up on me, will you?
    Can’t you even let me spit in peace?
Even suppose I’d sinned—how would that hurt you?
    You’re responsible for every human being.
Don’t you have better things to do than pick on me?
    Why make a federal case out of me?
Why don’t you just forgive my sins
    and start me off with a clean slate?
The way things are going, I’ll soon be dead.
    You’ll look high and low, but I won’t be around.”