[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 tell God, ‘Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me.
[3] Is it good to you that you should oppress, that you should despise the work of your hands, and smile on the counsel of the wicked?
[4] Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as man sees?
[5] Are your days as the days of mortals, or your years as man’s years,
[6] that you inquire after my iniquity, and search after my sin?
[7] Although you know that I am not wicked, there is no one who can deliver out of your hand.
[8] “‘Your hands have framed me and fashioned me altogether, yet you destroy me.
[9] Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?
[10] Haven’t you poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese?
[11] You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.
[12] You have granted me life and loving kindness. Your visitation has preserved my spirit.
[13] Yet you hid these things in your heart. I know that this is with you:
[14] if I sin, then you mark me. You will not acquit me from my iniquity.
[15] If I am wicked, woe to me. If I am righteous, I still shall not lift up my head, being filled with disgrace, and conscious of my affliction.
[16] If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me.
[17] You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your indignation on me. Changes and warfare are with me.
[18] “‘Why, then, have you brought me out of the womb? I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me.
[19] I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
[20] Aren’t my days few? Cease then. Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,
[21] before I go where I shall not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
[22] the land dark as midnight, of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as midnight.’”