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? 4Have You 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 none that can deliver 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 so will You turn me back into dust again? 10Have You not poured me out as 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 these present evils You have hidden in Your heart; from creation. 14If I sin, then You mark me, and You will not acquit me from my guilt. 15If I am wicked, woe unto me; and if I am righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore, please see my affliction; 16For it increases. You hunt me as a fierce lion; and again, You show Your awesome power upon me. 17You renew Your witnesses, and increase Your indignation and anger against me; events war against me. 18Why, then, have You brought me forth out of the womb? Oh, that I had died (given up the ghost), 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.

20‘Are not my days few and almost over? Cease, then, and let me alone, that I may take a little comfort, 21Before I go to the place from which I shall not 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.’”