¹ “I loathe my very life;
    therefore I will give free rein to my complaints
    and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.
² I will say to God: ‘Do not condemn me,
    but simply let me know what is your charge against me.
³ Do you get any joy in oppressing me,
    spurning the work of your own hands
    while approving the schemes of the wicked?
⁴ “ ‘Do you have eyes of flesh?
    Do you see as a mortal sees?
⁵ Are your days like those of a mortal,
    or your years like those of a man,
⁶ that you investigate my iniquity
    and keep a record of my sins,
⁷ even though you know that I am innocent
    and have no one to rescue me from your hand?

⁸ “ ‘Your hands created and fashioned me;
    will you now turn away and destroy me?
⁹ Remember that you fashioned me like clay;
    will you now reduce me again to dust?
¹⁰ Did you not pour me out like milk
    and curdle me like cheese?
¹¹ You clothed me with skin and flesh
    and knit me together with bones and sinews.
¹² “ ‘You have given me life and kindness,
    and in your providence you have preserved my spirit.
¹³ Yet within your heart you had a secret plan,
    and I realize what was your intent:
¹⁴ you would be watching me,
    and if I sinned, you would not absolve me of my guilt.
¹⁵ “ ‘Woe to me if I should be wicked.
    Even if I am righteous, I dare not lift up my head,
for I am filled with shame
    and bent over with affliction.
¹⁶ Should I lift up my head, you hunt me like a proud lion,
    confronting me time and again with your awesome power.
¹⁷ You renew your onslaughts against me,
    your fury increasing incessantly
    as fresh troops assail me wave after wave.

¹⁸ “ ‘Why did you bring me forth from the womb?
    It would have been better if I had died
    before an eye had beheld me,
¹⁹ and had been carried from the womb to the grave
    as though I had never existed.
²⁰ Do I not have but a few remaining days of life?
    Let me alone so that I may have a few moments of happiness
²¹ before I go to the place of no return,
    to the land of gloom and darkness,
²² to the land of deepest night,
    a land of gloom and disorder,
    where even the light is like darkness.’ ”