¹My being loathes my life; I will let loose my anguish over myself, I will speak in the bitterness of my being.

²I will say to God: Do not condemn me; make me know what you are contending with me over.

³Is it good to you that you oppress, that you reject the toil of your palms, and shine forth over the counsel of the wicked?

⁴Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as a man sees?

⁵Are your days like the days of a man, or your years like the days of a person,

⁶that you seek after my guilt and you inquire after my sin?

⁷You know that I am not guilty, and there is no one to deliver from your hand.

⁸Your hands fashioned me and made me, together, all around, and you swallowed me down.

⁹Remember, please, that you made me like clay, and to dust you will return me.

¹⁰Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like curds?

¹¹You clothed me with skin and flesh, and with bones and sinews you wove me together.

¹²You made life and loyal love with me, and your oversight kept my breath.

¹³And these things you hid in your heart; I know that this was with you.

¹⁴If I sinned, you would keep watch over me, and from my guilt you would not acquit me.

¹⁵If I am guilty, woe to me; and if I am righteous, I will not lift up my head, sated with shame and seeing my affliction.

¹⁶If my head rises, like a lion you hunt me, and again you show yourself a wonder against me.

¹⁷You renew your witnesses before me and you increase your vexation against me; relays and an army stand against me.

¹⁸Why did you bring me out of the womb? I would have breathed out, and no eye would have seen me.

¹⁹As though I had not been, I would be; from the womb to the grave I would be carried.

²⁰Are not my days few? Cease, and put yourself away from me, that I may brighten a little,

²¹before I go, and I will not return, to the land of darkness and deep shadow,

²²a land of darkness, like the gloom of deep shadow, with no order, and it shines like gloom.