[1] "I hate my life. I will freely express my complaint. I will speak as bitterly as I feel. [2] I will say to God, 'Don't condemn me. Let me know why you are quarreling with me. [3] What do you gain by mistreating me, by rejecting the work of your hands while you favor the plans of the wicked? [4] Do you actually have human eyes? Do you see as a mortal sees? [5] Are your days like a mortal's days? Are your years like a human's years? [6] Is that why you look for guilt in me and search for sin in me? [7] You know I'm not guilty, but there is no one to rescue me from your hands. [8] "'Your hands formed me and made every part of me, then you turned to destroy me. [9] Please remember that you made me out of clay and that you will return me to the dust again. [10] Didn't you pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? [11] Didn't you dress me in skin and flesh and weave me together with bones and tendons? [12] You gave me life and mercy. Your watchfulness has preserved my spirit. [13] But in your heart you hid these things. I know this is what you did. [14] "'If I sin, you watch me and will not free me from my guilt. [15] How terrible it will be for me if I'm guilty! Even if I'm righteous, I dare not lift up my head. I am filled with disgrace while I look on my misery. [16] Like a proud, ferocious lion you hunt me down. You keep working your miracles against me. [17] You keep finding new witnesses against me. You keep increasing your anger toward me. You keep bringing new armies against me. [18] "'Why did you take me out of the womb? I wish I had breathed my last breath before anyone had laid eyes on me. [19] Then it would be as if I had never existed, as if I had been carried from the womb to the tomb. [20] "'Isn't my life short enough? So stop this, and leave me alone. Let me smile a little [21] before I go away to a land of darkness and gloom, [22] to a dismal land of long shadows and confusion where light is as bright as darkness. I'll never return.'"
