Job 7

7 ¹"Don't people have hard service on earth, and aren't their days like those of a hired worker? ²Like a slave who longs for the shade, and like a hired worker who waits for his wages, ³so I have been allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery have been assigned to me. ⁴When I lie down I say, 'When will I get up?' But the night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn. ⁵My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks open again. ⁶My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and they come to their end without hope. ⁷Remember that my life is but a breath; I will never again see anything good. ⁸The eye that sees me now will see me no more; your eyes will be on me, and I will be gone. ⁹As a cloud fades and vanishes, so the one who goes down to the grave does not come up; ¹⁰he returns no more to his house, and his place knows him no longer.

¹¹"Therefore I will not keep my mouth shut; I will speak out of 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 frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, ¹⁵so that I would choose strangling and death rather than this body of mine. ¹⁶I waste away; I will not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.

¹⁷"What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him, ¹⁸that you visit him every morning and test him every moment? ¹⁹How long until you look away from me, and leave me alone long enough to swallow my spit? ²⁰If I have sinned, what have I done to you, watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your target, so that I have become a burden to myself? ²¹Why won't you forgive my sin and take away my guilt? For soon I will lie down in the dust; you will search for me, but I will be gone."