1"My soul is weary of my life; I will give full vent to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

2I will say to God, 'Do not condemn me; make me know why You contend with me.

3Is it good to You that You should oppress, that You should despise the work of Your hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?

4Have You eyes of flesh? Or do You see as a man sees?

5Are Your days like the days of man? Are Your years like man's days,

6That You seek out my iniquity, and search for my sin?

7Although You know that I am not wicked, yet there is none who can deliver out of Your hand.

8Your hands have made me and shaped me, together all around; yet You destroy me.

9Remember, I beseech You, that You have formed me as the clay; and will You bring me into the dust again?

10Have You not poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese?

11You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and have fenced me with bones and sinews.

12You have granted me life and favor, and Your providence has preserved my spirit.

13And these things have You hidden in Your heart; I know that this was with You.

14If I sin, then You mark me, and You will not acquit me from my iniquity.

15If I am wicked, woe to me; and if I am righteous, I will not lift up my head, being filled with confusion--therefore look upon my affliction.

16For if my head be lifted up, You will hunt me as a fierce lion; and again You will show Yourself awesome against me.

17You renew Your witnesses against me, and increase Your anger upon me; changes and warfare are against me.

18Why then have You brought me from the womb? Oh, that I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me!

19I should have been as though I had not been; I would have been carried from the womb to the grave.

20Are not my days few? Withdraw then, and let me alone, that I may take a little comfort,

21Before I go, and I do not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death;

22A land of obscurity, as the darkness itself and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness. ' "