audio play audio stop

¹ “Do not mortals have hard service on earth? Are not their days like those of hired laborers?

² Like a slave longing for the evening shadows, or a hired laborer waiting to be paid,

³ so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.

⁴ When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’ The night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn.

⁵ My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering.

⁶ “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to an end without hope.

⁷ Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again.

⁸ The eye that now sees me will see me no longer; you will look for me, but I will be no more.

⁹ As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so one who goes down to the grave does not return.

¹⁰ He will never come to his house again; his place will know him no more.

¹¹ “Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹² Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under guard?

¹³ When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint,

¹⁴ even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions,

¹⁵ so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine.

¹⁶ I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning.

¹⁷ “What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention,

¹⁸ that you examine them every morning and test them every moment?

¹⁹ Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant?

²⁰ If I have sinned, what have I done to you, you who see everything we do? Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you? A few manuscripts of the Masoretic Text, an ancient Hebrew scribal tradition and Septuagint; most manuscripts of the Masoretic Text I have become a burden to myself. ²¹ Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins? For I will soon lie down in the dust; you will search for me, but I will be no more.”