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. ²I will tell God, ‘Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me. ³Is 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? ⁴Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as man sees? ⁵Are your days as the days of mortals, or your years as man’s years, ⁶that you inquire after my iniquity, and search after my sin? ⁷Although 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. ⁹Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again? ¹⁰Haven’t you poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese? ¹¹You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. ¹²You have granted me life and loving kindness. Your visitation has preserved my spirit. ¹³Yet you hid these things in your heart. I know that this is with you: ¹⁴if I sin, then you mark me. You will not acquit me from my iniquity. ¹⁵If I am wicked, woe to me. If I am righteous, I still will not lift up my head, being filled with disgrace, and conscious of my affliction. ¹⁶If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me. ¹⁷You 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. ¹⁹I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. ²⁰Aren’t my days few? Stop! Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort, ²¹before I go where I will not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death; ²²the land dark as midnight, of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as midnight.’”