Job 7

¹“Isn’t a man forced to labor on earth? Aren’t his days like the days of a hired hand?

²As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages,

³so am I made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me.

⁴When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I arise, and the night be gone?’ I toss and turn until the dawning of the day.

⁵My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh.

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.

⁷Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good.

⁸The eye of him who sees me shall see me no more. Your eyes shall be on me, but I shall not be.

⁹As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol shall come up no more.

¹⁰He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.

¹¹“Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹²Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me?

¹³When I say, ‘My bed shall comfort me. My couch shall ease my complaint;’

¹⁴then you scare me with dreams, and terrify me through visions:

¹⁵so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones.

¹⁶I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.

¹⁷What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him,

¹⁸that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment?

¹⁹How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle?

²⁰If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself?

²¹Why do you not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity? For now shall I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I shall not be.”