7 “Is not all human life a struggle?
    Our lives are like that of a hired hand,
² like a worker who longs for the shade,
    like a servant waiting to be paid.
³ I, too, have been assigned months of futility,
    long and weary nights of misery.
⁴ Lying in bed, I think, ‘When will it be morning?’
    But the night drags on, and I toss till dawn.
⁵ My body is covered with maggots and scabs.
    My skin breaks open, oozing with pus.

¹¹ “I cannot keep from speaking.
    I must express my anguish.
    My bitter soul must complain.
¹² Am I a sea monster or a dragon
    that you must place me under guard?
¹³ I think, ‘My bed will comfort me,
    and sleep will ease my misery,’
¹⁴ but then you shatter me with dreams
    and terrify me with visions.
¹⁵ I would rather be strangled—
    rather die than suffer like this.
¹⁶ I hate my life and don’t want to go on living.
    Oh, leave me alone for my few remaining days.

¹⁷ “What are people, that you should make so much of us,
    that you should think of us so often?
¹⁸ For you examine us every morning
    and test us every moment.
¹⁹ Why won’t you leave me alone,
    at least long enough for me to swallow!
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?^[b]
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.”