1“My soul is weary of my life. I will express my complaint for myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. 2I will say to 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 me, the work of Your hands, and look with favor upon 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 mortal man? Are Your years as man's years, 6That You inquire into my iniquity, and search for my sin? 7You know that I am not wicked; yet there is no one that can rescue me out of Your hand.

8‘Your hands have made me and fashioned me altogether; yet You destroy me. 9Remember, I beseech You, that You have made me as the clay. And will You turn me back into dust again? 10Have You not poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese? 11You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and held me together with bones and sinews. 12You have granted me life and favor, and Your divine care has preserved my spirit. 13And yet You have hidden these intents in Your heart from my creation. 14If I sin, then You mark me, and You will not free me from my guilt. 15If I am guilty, woe unto me; and even if I am righteous, I cannot lift up my head. I am full of shame and confusion, and aware of my affliction; 16And if I lift my head, You hunt me as a fierce lion; and show Your awesome power upon me. 17You renew Your witnesses against me, and Your indignation and anger increase like wave upon wave. 18Why, then, have You brought me forth out of the womb? Oh, that I had died, and no eye had seen me! 19I should have been as though I had never been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

20‘Are not my few days almost over? Then cease, and let me alone, that I may take a little comfort, 21Before I go to the place from which I shall never return, to the land of darkness and the shadow of death; 22A land of utter gloom, as darkness itself; and the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.’”