1 I AM weary of my life and loathe it! I will give free expression to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. 2 I will say to God, Do not condemn me [do not make me guilty]! Show me why You contend with me. 3 Does it seem good to You that You should oppress, that You should despise and reject the work of Your hands, and favor the schemes of the wicked? 4 Have You eyes of flesh? Do You see as man sees? 5 Are Your days as the days of man, are Your years as man's [years], 6 That You inquire after my iniquity and search for my sin-- 7 Although You know that I am not wicked or guilty and that there is none who can deliver me out of Your hand? 8 Your hands have formed me and made me. Would You turn around and destroy me? 9 Remember [earnestly], I beseech You, that You have fashioned me as clay [out of the same earth material, exquisitely and elaborately]. And will You bring me into dust again? 10 Have You not poured me out like milk and curdled me like cheese? 11 You have clothed me with skin and flesh and have knit me together with bones and sinews. 12 You have granted me life and favor, and Your providence has preserved my spirit. 13 Yet these [the present evils] have You hid in Your heart [for me since my creation]; I know that this was with You [in Your purpose and thought]. 14 If I sin, then You observe me, and You will not acquit me from my iniquity and guilt. 15 If I am wicked, woe unto me! And if I am righteous, yet must I not lift up my head, for I am filled with disgrace and the sight of my affliction. 16 If I lift myself up, You hunt me like a lion and again show Yourself [inflicting] marvelous [trials] upon me. 17 You renew Your witnesses against me and increase Your indignation toward me; I am as if attacked by a troop time after time.
18 Why then did You bring me forth out of the womb? Would that I had perished and no eye had seen me! 19 I should have been as though I had not existed; 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 take a little comfort and cheer up 21 Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death, 22 The land of sunless gloom as intense darkness, [the land] of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as thick darkness.