1: My soul is weary of my life: I will give free course to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. 2: I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou strivest with me. 3: Doth it please thee to oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thy hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked? 4: Hast thou eyes of flesh? or seest thou as man seeth? 5: Are thy days as the days of a mortal? are thy years as a man's days, 6: That thou searchest after mine iniquity, and inquirest into my sin; 7: Since thou knowest that I am not wicked, and that there is none that delivereth out of thy hand? 8: Thy hands have bound me together and made me as one, round about; yet dost thou swallow me up! 9: Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as clay, and wilt bring me into dust again. 10: Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese? 11: Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews; 12: Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy care hath preserved my spirit; 13: And these things didst thou hide in thy heart; I know that this was with thee. 14: If I sinned, thou wouldest mark me, and thou wouldest not acquit me of mine iniquity. 15: 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; -- 16: And it increaseth: thou huntest me as a fierce lion; and ever again thou shewest thy marvellous power upon me. 17: Thou renewest thy witnesses before me and increasest thy displeasure against me; successions [of evil] and a time of toil are with me. 18: And wherefore didst thou bring me forth out of the womb? I had expired, and no eye had seen me. 19: I should be as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. 20: Are not my days few? cease then and let me alone, that I may revive a little, 21: Before I go, and never to return, -- to the land of darkness and the shadow of death; 22: A land of gloom, as darkness itself; of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as thick darkness.
