Job 7

¹ Has not man his ordered time of trouble on the earth? and are not his days like the days of a servant working for payment?

² As a servant desiring the shades of evening, and a workman looking for his payment:

³ So I have for my heritage months of pain to no purpose, and nights of weariness are given to me.

⁴ When I go to my bed, I say, When will it be time to get up? but the night is long, and I am turning from side to side till morning light.

⁵ My flesh is covered with worms and dust; my skin gets hard and then is cracked again.

⁶ My days go quicker than the cloth-worker’s thread, and come to an end without hope.

⁷ O, keep in mind that my life is wind: my eye will never again see good.

⁸ The eye of him who sees me will see me no longer: your eyes will be looking for me, but I will be gone.

⁹ A cloud comes to an end and is gone; so he who goes down into the underworld comes not up again.

¹⁰ He will not come back to his house, and his place will have no more knowledge of him.

¹¹ So I will not keep my mouth shut; I will let the words come from it in the pain of my spirit, my soul will make a bitter outcry.

¹² Am I a sea, or a sea-beast, that you put a watch over me?

¹³ When I say, In my bed I will have comfort, there I will get rest from my disease;

¹⁴ Then you send dreams to me, and visions of fear;

¹⁵ So that a hard death seems better to my soul than my pains.

¹⁶ I have no desire for life, I would not be living for ever! Keep away from me, for my days are as a breath.

¹⁷ What is man, that you have made him great, and that your attention is fixed on him,

¹⁸ And that your hand is on him every morning, and that you are testing him every minute?

¹⁹ How long will it be before your eyes are turned away from me, so that I may have a minute’s breathing-space?

²⁰ If I have done wrong, what have I done to you, O keeper of men? why have you made me a mark for your blows, so that I am a weariness to myself?

²¹ And why do you not take away my sin, and let my wrongdoing be ended? for now I go down to the dust, and you will be searching for me with care, but I will be gone.