1 My soul loathes my life; I will leave behind 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 Has it been delightful to You that You oppress, that You despise the work of Your hands, and have shone on the counsel of the wicked?
4 Do You have eyes of flesh? Or do You see as man sees?
5 Are Your days like the days of mortal man? Are Your years like the days of a mighty man,
6 that You should seek out my iniquity and search out my sin,
7 although You know that I am not wicked, and there is no one who can rescue out of Your hand?
8 Your hands have made me and fashioned me together all around; yet You swallow me up.
9 Remember, I beseech You, that You have made me like clay. And will You bring me back and return me to dust?
10 Did you not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese?
11 You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12 You have granted me life and favor, and Your care has preserved my spirit.
13 And these things You have hidden in Your heart; I have known that this was with You.
14 If I have sinned, then You have kept watch over me, and will not acquit me of my iniquity.
15 If I have been wicked, woe to me! And if I am righteous, I cannot lift up my head; I am full of disgrace. Pay attention to my affliction!
16 If I am exalted, You hunt me like a lion, and return to show Yourself wondrously to me.
17 You renew Your witnesses against me, and increase Your indignation toward me; changes and war are with me.
18 Why then have You brought me out of the womb? Oh, that I had expired and no eye had seen me!
19 I would have been as though I had not been. I would have been carried from the womb to the grave.
20 Are not my days few? Then cease and leave me alone, that I may take a little comfort
21 before I go and not return; to the land of darkness and the shadow of death;
22 a land of darkness and gloom, as the shadow of death, without any order; where it shines as darkness.