25-31 “My time is short—what’s left of my life races off
    too fast for me to even glimpse the good.
My life is going fast, like a ship under full sail,
    like an eagle plummeting to its prey.
Even if I say, ‘I’ll put all this behind me,
    I’ll look on the bright side and force a smile,’
All these troubles would still be like grit in my gut
    since it’s clear you’re not going to let up.
The verdict has already been handed down—‘Guilty!’—
    so what’s the use of protests or appeals?
Even if I scrub myself all over
    and wash myself with the strongest soap I can find,
It wouldn’t last—you’d push me into a pigpen, or worse,
    so nobody could stand me for the stink.

32-35 “God and I are not equals; I can’t bring a case against him.
    We’ll never enter a courtroom as peers.
How I wish we had an arbitrator
    to step in and let me get on with life—
To break God’s death grip on me,
    to free me from this terror so I could breathe again.
Then I’d speak up and state my case boldly.
    As things stand, there is no way I can do it.”

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30 Even if I washed myself with soap(A)
    and my hands(B) with cleansing powder,(C)
31 you would plunge me into a slime pit(D)
    so that even my clothes would detest me.(E)

32 “He is not a mere mortal(F) like me that I might answer him,(G)
    that we might confront each other in court.(H)

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30 If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;

31 Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.

32 For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.

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