Job 7

¹“Is not all human life a struggle?

Our lives are like that of a hired hand,

²like a worker who longs for the shade,

like a servant waiting to be paid.

³I, too, have been assigned months of futility,

long and weary nights of misery.

⁴Lying in bed, I think, ‘When will it be morning?’

But the night drags on, and I toss till dawn.

⁵My body is covered with maggots and scabs.

My skin breaks open, oozing with pus.

Job Cries Out to God

⁶“My days fly faster than a weaver’s shuttle.

They end without hope.

⁷O God, remember that my life is but a breath,

and I will never again feel happiness.

⁸You see me now, but not for long.

You will look for me, but I will be gone.

⁹Just as a cloud dissipates and vanishes,

those who die^a will not come back.

¹⁰They are gone forever from their home—

never to be seen again.

¹¹“I cannot keep from speaking.

I must express my anguish.

My bitter soul must complain.

¹²Am I a sea monster or a dragon

that you must place me under guard?

¹³I think, ‘My bed will comfort me,

and sleep will ease my misery,’

¹⁴but then you shatter me with dreams

and terrify me with visions.

¹⁵I would rather be strangled—

rather die than suffer like this.

¹⁶I hate my life and don’t want to go on living.

Oh, leave me alone for my few remaining days.

¹⁷“What are people, that you should make so much of us,

that you should think of us so often?

¹⁸For you examine us every morning

and test us every moment.

¹⁹Why won’t you leave me alone,

at least long enough for me to swallow!

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

O watcher of all humanity?

Why make me your target?

Am I a burden to you?^b

²¹Why not just forgive my sin

and take away my guilt?

For soon I will lie down in the dust and die.

When you look for me, I will be gone.”