Job 7

¹“Do not mortals have hard service on earth?

Are not their days like those of hired laborers?

²Like a slave longing for the evening shadows,

or a hired laborer waiting to be paid,

³so I have been allotted months of futility,

and nights of misery have been assigned to me.

⁴When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’

The night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn.

⁵My body is clothed with worms and scabs,

my skin is broken and festering.

⁶“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,

and they come to an end without hope.

⁷Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath;

my eyes will never see happiness again.

⁸The eye that now sees me will see me no longer;

you will look for me, but I will be no more.

⁹As a cloud vanishes and is gone,

so one who goes down to the grave does not return.

¹⁰He will never come to his house again;

his place will know him no more.

¹¹“Therefore I will not keep silent;

I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit,

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹²Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep,

that you put me under guard?

¹³When I think my bed will comfort me

and my couch will ease my complaint,

¹⁴even then you frighten me with dreams

and terrify me with visions,

¹⁵so that I prefer strangling and death,

rather than this body of mine.

¹⁶I despise my life; I would not live forever.

Let me alone; my days have no meaning.

¹⁷“What is mankind that you make so much of them,

that you give them so much attention,

¹⁸that you examine them every morning

and test them every moment?

¹⁹Will you never look away from me,

or let me alone even for an instant?

²⁰If I have sinned, what have I done to you,

you who see everything we do?

Why have you made me your target?

Have I become a burden to you?

²¹Why do you not pardon my offenses

and forgive my sins?

For I will soon lie down in the dust;

you will search for me, but I will be no more.”