²⁰ If I have sinned, what have I done to you,
    O watcher of all humanity?
Why make me your target?
    Am I a burden to you?^[a]

²¹ Why not just forgive my sin
    and take away my guilt?
For soon I will lie down in the dust and die.
    When you look for me, I will be gone.”

²⁰ Though I am innocent, my own mouth would pronounce me guilty.
    Though I am blameless, it^[a] would prove me wicked.

²¹ “I am innocent,
    but it makes no difference to me—
    I despise my life.
²² Innocent or wicked, it is all the same to God.
    That’s why I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’
²³ When a plague^[b] sweeps through,
    he laughs at the death of the innocent.
²⁴ The whole earth is in the hands of the wicked,
    and God blinds the eyes of the judges.
    If he’s not the one who does it, who is?

¹³ “‘Yet your real motive—
    your true intent—
¹⁴ was to watch me, and if I sinned,
    you would not forgive my guilt.
¹⁵ If I am guilty, too bad for me;
    and even if I’m innocent, I can’t hold my head high,
    because I am filled with shame and misery.
¹⁶ And if I hold my head high, you hunt me like a lion
    and display your awesome power against me.
¹⁷ Again and again you witness against me.
    You pour out your growing anger on me
    and bring fresh armies against me.