Job Chapter 7
Can’t I distinguish guilt from disaster? Job 6:24-30
7:1“Aren’t people forced into hard labor?
Aren’t their days like those of a hired hand?
2 Like a slave panting for shade,
like an employee waiting for wages,
3 I’ve been allotted months of emptiness
and given restless nights.
4 When I‘m in bed, I say, ‘When is morning ever going to get here?’
But night goes on and on, and I toss and turn till dawn.
5 My body is covered with maggots and scabs;
my skin hardens and breaks open and festers.
Job 7:1-5
6 My days fly by faster than a weaver’s shuttle
and end without hope.
7 “Remember that my life is only a breath, God;
I won’t see good times again.
8 People won’t see me for long
because I’ll be gone.
9 Like a dissipating cloud,
those who go down to Sheol don’t come up again.
10 They won’t come home
or ever be seen again.
Job 7:6-10
11 “So I won’t hold back;
I’ll speak with anguished spirit;
I’ll complain from my bitter soul.
12 Am I the sea or a sea monster
that you set a guard over me?
13 If I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,
my couch will ease my discomfort,’
14 then you scare me with dreams
and terrify me with nightmares;
15 so I’d have chosen strangulation
and death instead of these pains.
16 I’m wasting away; I won’t live forever;
leave me alone; my life is just a breath.
Job 7:11-16
17 “What are people that you pay so much attention to them,
that you concern yourself with them,
18 that you examine them every morning
and test them all day?
19 Won’t you ever look the other way
or let me alone long enough to swallow?
20 Have I sinned? What have I ever done to you
that you keep hounding me?
Why do you target me
and burden yourself with me?
21 Why don’t you just pardon my sin
take away my guilt?
Soon I’ll lie down in the ground and die;
you’ll look for me, but I wouldn’t be there.”
Job 7:17-21