²⁵ ‘My days are swifter than a runner;
    they fly away without a glimpse of joy.
²⁶ They skim past like boats of papyrus,
    like eagles swooping down on their prey.
²⁷ If I say, “I will forget my complaint,
    I will change my expression, and smile,”
²⁸ I still dread all my sufferings,
    for I know you will not hold me innocent.
²⁹ Since I am already found guilty,
    why should I struggle in vain?
³⁰ Even if I washed myself with soap
    and my hands with cleansing powder,
³¹ you would plunge me into a slime pit
    so that even my clothes would detest me.

³² ‘He is not a mere mortal like me that I might answer him,
    that we might confront each other in court.
³³ If only there were someone to mediate between us,
    someone to bring us together,
³⁴ someone to remove God’s rod from me,
    so that his terror would frighten me no more.
³⁵ Then I would speak up without fear of him,
    but as it now stands with me, I cannot.

10 ‘I loathe my very life;
    therefore I will give free rein to my complaint
    and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.
² I say to God: do not declare me guilty,
    but tell me what charges you have against me.
³ Does it please you to oppress me,
    to spurn the work of your hands,
    while you smile on the plans 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 strong man,
⁶ that you must search out my faults
    and probe after my sin –
⁷ though you know that I am not guilty
    and that no one can rescue me from your hand?

² ‘How I long for the months gone by,
    for the days when God watched over me,
³ when his lamp shone on my head
    and by his light I walked through darkness!
⁴ Oh, for the days when I was in my prime,
    when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house,
⁵ when the Almighty was still with me
    and my children were around me,
⁶ when my path was drenched with cream
    and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil.