1 ‘I loathe my very life;therefore I will give free rein to my complaintand speak out in the bitterness of my soul.
2 I say to God: do not declare me guilty,but tell me what charges you have against me.
3 Does it please you to oppress me,to spurn the work of your hands,while you smile on the plans of the wicked?
4 Do you have eyes of flesh?Do you see as a mortal sees?
5 Are your days like those of a mortalor your years like those of a strong man,
6 that you must search out my faultsand probe after my sin –
7 though you know that I am not guiltyand that no one can rescue me from your hand?
8 ‘Your hands shaped me and made me.Will you now turn and destroy me?
9 Remember that you moulded me like clay.Will you now turn me to dust again?
10 Did you not pour me out like milkand curdle me like cheese,
11 clothe me with skin and fleshand knit me together with bones and sinews?
12 You gave me life and showed me kindness,and in your providence watched over my spirit.
13 ‘But this is what you concealed in your heart,and I know that this was in your mind:
14 if I sinned, you would be watching meand would not let my offence go unpunished.
15 If I am guilty – woe to me!Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head,for I am full of shameand drowned in my affliction.
16 If I hold my head high, you stalk me like a lionand again display your awesome power against me.
17 You bring new witnesses against meand increase your anger towards me;your forces come against me wave upon wave.
18 ‘Why then did you bring me out of the womb?I wish I had died before any eye saw me.
19 If only I had never come into being,or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!
20 Are not my few days almost over?Turn away from me so that I can have a moment’s joy
21 before I go to the place of no return,to the land of gloom and utter darkness,
22 to the land of deepest night,of utter darkness and disorder,where even the light is like darkness.’