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7. Job Speaks

¹ “Do not mortals have hard service on earth?
   Are not their days like those of hired laborers?
² Like a slave longing for the evening shadows,
   or a hired laborer waiting to be paid,
³ so I have been allotted months of futility,
   and nights of misery have been assigned to me.
⁴ When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’
   The night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn.
⁵ My body is clothed with worms and scabs,
   my skin is broken and festering.

    ⁶ “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
   and they come to an end without hope.
⁷ Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath;
   my eyes will never see happiness again.
⁸ The eye that now sees me will see me no longer;
   you will look for me, but I will be no more.
⁹ As a cloud vanishes and is gone,
   so one who goes down to the grave does not return.
¹⁰ He will never come to his house again;
   his place will know him no more.

    ¹¹ “Therefore I will not keep silent;
   I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit,
   I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
¹² Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep,
   that you put me under guard?
¹³ When I think my bed will comfort me
   and my couch will ease my complaint,
¹⁴ even then you frighten me with dreams
   and terrify me with visions,
¹⁵ so that I prefer strangling and death,
   rather than this body of mine.
¹⁶ I despise my life; I would not live forever.
   Let me alone; my days have no meaning.

    ¹⁷ “What is mankind that you make so much of them,
   that you give them so much attention,
¹⁸ that you examine them every morning
   and test them every moment?
¹⁹ Will you never look away from me,
   or let me alone even for an instant?
²⁰ If I have sinned, what have I done to you,
   you who sees everything we do?
Why have you made me your target?
   Have I become a burden to you? A few manuscripts of the Masoretic Text, an ancient Hebrew scribal tradition and Septuagint; most manuscripts of the Masoretic Text I have become a burden to myself.
²¹ Why do you not pardon my offenses
   and forgive my sins?
For I will soon lie down in the dust;
   you will search for me, but I will be no more.”