Job 7

¹Has not man a hard service on earth , and are not his days like the days of a hired hand ?

²Like a slave who longs for the shadow , and like a hired hand who looks for his wages ,

³so I am allotted months of emptiness , and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

⁴When I lie down I say , When shall I arise ? But the night is long , and I am full of tossing till the dawn .

⁵My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt ; my skin hardens , then breaks out afresh.

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and come to their end without hope .

⁷Remember that my life is a breath ; my eye will never again see good .

⁸The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more; while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone .

⁹As the cloud fades and vanishes , so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up ;

¹⁰he returns no more to his house , nor does his place know him anymore .

¹¹Therefore I will not restrain my mouth ; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit ; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul .

¹²Am I the sea , or a sea monster , that you set a guard over me?

¹³When I say , My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint ,

¹⁴then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions ,

¹⁵so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones .

¹⁶I loathe my life; I would not live forever . Leave me alone , for my days are a breath .

¹⁷What is man , that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him,

¹⁸visit him every morning and test him every moment ?

¹⁹How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit ?

²⁰If I sin , what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind ? Why have you made me your mark ? Why have I become a burden to you?

²¹Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity ? For now I shall lie in the earth ; you will seek me, but I shall not be .