[1] “I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
[2] I will say to God, Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me.
[3] Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the designs of the wicked?
[4] Have you eyes of flesh? Do you see as man sees?
[5] Are your days as the days of man, or your years as a man’s years,
[6] that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin,
[7] although you know that I am not guilty, and there is none to deliver out of your hand?
[8] Your hands fashioned and made me, and now you have destroyed me altogether.
[9] Remember that you have made me like clay; and will you return me to the dust?
[10] Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?
[11] You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.
[12] You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.
[13] Yet these things you hid in your heart; I know that this was your purpose.
[14] If I sin, you watch me and do not acquit me of my iniquity.
[15] If I am guilty, woe to me! If I am in the right, I cannot lift up my head, for I am filled with disgrace and look on my affliction.
[16] And were my head lifted up, you would hunt me like a lion and again work wonders against me.
[17] You renew your witnesses against me and increase your vexation toward me; you bring fresh troops against me.
[18] “Why did you bring me out from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me
[19] and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave.
[20] Are not my days few? Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer
[21] before I go—and I shall not return— to the land of darkness and deep shadow,
[22] the land of gloom like thick darkness, like deep shadow without any order, where light is as thick darkness.”