Job Continues: My Life Has No Hope

¹“Has not man ra hard service on earth,

and are not his sdays like the days of a hired hand?

²Like a slave who longs for tthe shadow,

and like ua hired hand who looks for his vwages,

³so I am allotted months of wemptiness,

xand nights of misery are apportioned to me.

⁴yWhen I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’

But the night is long,

and I am full of tossing till the dawn.

⁵My flesh is clothed with zworms and adirt;

my skin hardens, then bbreaks out afresh.

⁶My days are cswifter than da weaver's shuttle

and come to their end without hope.

⁷“Remember that my life is a ebreath;

my eye will never again see good.

⁸fThe eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;

while your eyes are on me, gI shall be gone.

⁹As hthe cloud fades and vanishes,

so he who igoes down to Sheol does not come up;

¹⁰he jreturns no more to his house,

nor does his kplace know him anymore.

¹¹“Therefore I will not lrestrain my mouth;

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;

I will mcomplain in nthe bitterness of my soul.

¹²Am I the sea, or oa sea monster,

that you set a guard over me?

¹³pWhen I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,

my couch will ease my complaint,’

¹⁴then you scare me with dreams

and terrify me with visions,

¹⁵so that I would choose strangling

and death rather than my qbones.

¹⁶I rloathe my life; I would not live forever.

sLeave me alone, for my days are ta breath.

¹⁷uWhat is man, that you make so much of him,

and that you set your heart on him,

¹⁸vvisit him every morning

and wtest him every moment?

¹⁹How long will you not xlook away from me,

nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?

²⁰If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind?

Why have you made me yyour mark?

Why have I become a burden to you?

²¹Why do you not pardon my transgression

and take away my iniquity?

For now I shall lie in zthe earth;

you will aseek me, bbut I shall not be.”