1
“My being is disgusted with my life; I shall release my complaint over myself; I shall speak in the bitterness of my being.
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I shall say to Eloah, ‘Do not condemn me. Cause me to know why You contend with me.
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Is it good to You that You oppress, that You reject the labor of Your hands and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?
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Do You have eyes of flesh? Do You see as mortal man sees?
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Are Your days like the days of mortal man? Are Your years like the days of a mighty one,
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that You seek my crookedness and search for my sin,
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though it is according to Your knowledge that I am not wicked, and there is none who delivers from Your hand?
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Your hands shaped me and made me together all around, yet You swallow me.
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Remember, please, that You made me as clay, and You return me to dust.
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Did You not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?
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You clothed me with skin and flesh and wove me together with bones and sinews.
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You made life and covenant-faithfulness with me, and Your visitation guarded my ruach.
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Yet these things You concealed in Your heart; I know that this was with You.
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If I sinned, You watched me and did not hold me innocent from my crookedness.
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If I were wicked—woe to me. If I were righteous, I could not lift my head, being filled with shame and seeing my affliction.
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If my head rose, You hunted me like a fierce lion, and again showed Yourself wondrous against me.
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You renew Your witnesses before me and increase Your provocation against me; changes and an army are with me.
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Why then did You bring me forth from the womb? I would have expired, and no eye would have seen me.
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I would have been as though I had not existed, carried from the womb to the grave.
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Are not my days few? Let Him cease and turn from me, that I may brighten a little
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before I go—and do not return— to a land of darkness and death-shadow,
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a land of weariness like thick darkness, death-shadow without order, where it shines like thick darkness.’”