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.
2 I will say to God, Do not condemn me; Show me why you contend with me.
3 Is it good to you that you should oppress, That you should despise the work of your hands, And shine on the counsel of the wicked?
4 Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as common man sees?
5 Are your days as the days of common man, Or your years as the days of [noble] man,
6 That you inquire after my iniquity, And search after my sin,
7 Although you know that I am not wicked, And there is none who can deliver out of your hand?
8 Your hands have framed me and fashioned me, Together round about; yet you destroy me.
9 Remember, I urge you, that you have fashioned me as clay; And will you bring me into dust again?
10 Have you not poured me out as milk, And curdled me like cheese?
11 You have clothed me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews.
12 You have granted me life and loving-kindness; And your visitation has preserved my spirit.
13 Yet these things you hid in your heart; I know that this is with you:
14 If I sin, then you mark me, And you will not acquit me from my iniquity.
15 If I am wicked, woe to me; And if I am righteous, yet I will not lift up my head, Filled with shame and drunk with my affliction.
16 And if [my head] exalts itself, you hunt me as a lion; And again you show yourself marvelous on me.
17 You renew your witnesses against me, And increase your indignation on me: Changes and warfare are with me.
18 Why then have you brought me forth out of the womb? I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me.
19 I 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? stop. Turn away from me, that I may take comfort a little,
21 Before I go from where I will not return, [Even] to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
22 The land dark as midnight, [The land] of the shadow of death, without any order, And where the light is as midnight.