| 1 Since I loathe my life, I shall pour forth my complaint; I shall speak of my soul’s torment. | |
| 2 I shall say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what is your quarrel with me? | |
| 3 Would it be good for you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands and favor the designs of the wicked? | |
| 4 Have you human eyes? Do you see as man sees? | |
| 5 Are your days as the days of man, or your years as a mortal’s lifetime? | |
| 6 Why do you seek guilt in me and search for my faults? | |
| 7 You know I have not sinned, but who can rescue me from your hand? | |
| 8 You have formed and made me. Will you then turn and destroy me? | |
| 9 Remember that you molded me from clay. Will you turn me to dust again? | |
| 10 Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? | |
| 11 You wrapped me up in skin and flesh, knit me together with bones and sinews. | |
| 12 In your goodness you gave me life and watched over my breathing with care. | |
| 13 Yet this is what you hid in your heart, I know what was in your mind: | |
| 14 You wanted to see if I sinned, and not let my fault be forgiven. | |
| 15 If I am guilty – alas for me! If innocent – I dare not lift my head, humbled and shamed in my affliction. | |
| 16 Exhausted, you hunt me like a lion, you want to prove that you are stronger. | |
| 17 You renew your attack on me; you intensify your rage, wave upon wave, your forces assail me. | |
| 18 Why did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died unseen, | |
| 19 a being that had not been – carried from the womb direct to the tomb. | |
| 20 Are not my days almost over? Turn away; leave me a while to recover | |
| 21 before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and shadow, | |
| 22 to the land of chaos and deepest night, where darkness is the only light. | |
