Complaint to God

¹ I loathe my life; I will let loose my complaint; I will speak out of my own bitterness.

² I will say to God, Don’t declare me guilty; tell me what you are accusing me of doing.

³ Does it seem good to you that you oppress me, that you reject the work of your hands and cause the purpose of sinners to shine?

⁴ Do you have physical eyes; do you see like a human?

⁵ Are your days like those of a human, your years like years of a human,

⁶ that you search for my wrongdoing and seek my sin?

Creator

⁷ You know that I’m not guilty, yet no one delivers me from your power.

⁸ Your hands fashioned and made me; yet you want to destroy me utterly.

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

¹⁰ Didn’t you pour me out like milk, curdle me like cheese?

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

No hiding place

¹² Life and kindness you gave me, and you oversaw and preserved my breath.

¹³ These things you hid in your heart; I know this is the case with you.

¹⁴ If I sin and you observe me, you won’t consider me innocent of wrongdoing.

¹⁵ If I were guilty, doom to me; I’m innocent, but can’t lift my head, full of shame and facing my misery.

¹⁶ I could boast like a lion, and you would hunt me; you would do awesome things to me again.

Death wish

¹⁷ You continue to send your witnesses against me and increase your anger toward me, a swift army against me.

¹⁸ Why did you let me emerge from the womb? I wish I had died without any eye seeing me.

¹⁹ Then I would be just as if I hadn’t existed, taken from the belly to the grave.

²⁰ Aren’t my few days coming to an end? Look away from me so I can brighten up a little

²¹ before I go and don’t return to a land of deepest darkness,

²² a land whose light is like gloom, utter darkness and confusion, such that light shines like gloom.