| | 1 | "I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul. | |
| | 2 | I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me. | |
| | 3 | Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the schemes of the wicked? | |
| | 4 | Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees? | |
| | 5 | Are your days like those of a mortal or your years like those of a man, | |
| | 6 | that you must search out my faults and probe after my sin-- | |
| | 7 | though you know that I am not guilty and that no one can rescue me from your hand? | |
| | 8 | "Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? | |
| | 9 | Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? | |
| | 10 | Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, | |
| | 11 | clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? | |
| | 12 | You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit. | |
| | 13 | "But this is what you concealed in your heart, and I know that this was in your mind: | |
| | 14 | If I sinned, you would be watching me and would not let my offense go unpunished. | |
| | 15 | If I am guilty--woe to me! Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head, for I am full of shame and drowned in my affliction. | |
| | 16 | If I hold my head high, you stalk me like a lion and again display your awesome power against me. | |
| | 17 | You bring new witnesses against me and increase your anger toward me; your forces come against me wave upon wave. | |
| | 18 | "Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me. | |
| | 19 | If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave! | |
| | 20 | Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me so I can have a moment's joy | |
| | 21 | before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and deep shadow, | |
| | 22 | to the land of deepest night, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness." | |
