1 “My being has grown weary of life. I let loose my complaint, I speak in the bitterness of my being.
2 I say to Eloah, ‘Do not declare me wicked, show me why You strive with me.
3 Is it good to You that You should crush, that You should despise the work of Your hands, and shine on the counsel of the wicked?
4 Do You have eyes of flesh? Do You see as man sees?
5 Are Your days like the days of a mortal man? Are Your years like the days of a mighty man,
6 that You should seek for my wickedness and search out my sin?
7 For You know that I am not wicked, and there is no one to deliver from Your hand.
8 Your hands have made me and shaped me, together all around, yet You destroy me.
9 Remember, please, that You have made me like clay. And would You turn me into dust again?
10 Did You not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese?
11 Skin and flesh you put on me, and wove me with bones and sinews.
12 Life and kindness You have bestowed on me, and Your visitation has preserved my spirit.
13 And these You have laid up in Your heart, I know that this was with You:
14 If I sin, then You watch me, and let no wickedness of mine go unpunished.
15 If I am wicked, woe to me! And if I am righteous, I would not lift up my head – filled with shame and seeing my grief!
16 If I lift it up high, you hunt me as a lion, and again You would show Yourself marvellous against me.
17 You renew Your witnesses against me, and increase Your wrath toward me; changes and a host are with me.
18 So why have You brought me forth from the womb? Oh, that I had perished and no eye had seen me!
19 I should have been as though I had not been – brought from the womb to the grave.
20 Are not my days few? Then cease! Leave me alone, so that I brighten up a little,
21 Before I go, and not return, to the land of darkness and the shadow of death,
22 a land as dark as darkness itself, as the shadow of death, without any order, whose light is as darkness.”