Job: My suffering is without consolation
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“Isn’t a man forced to labor on earth? Aren’t his days like the days of a hired hand?
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As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages,
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so I am made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me.
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When I lie down, I say, ‘When will I arise, and the night be gone?’ I toss and turn until the dawning of the day.
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My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh.
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My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.
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Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye will no more see good.
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The eye of him who sees me will see me no more. Your eyes will be on me, but I will not be.
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As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol (a) will come up no more.
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He will return no more to his house, neither will his place know him any more.
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“Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
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Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me?
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When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me. My couch will ease my complaint,’
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then you scare me with dreams and terrify me through visions,
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so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones.
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I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.
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What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him,
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that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment?
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How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle?
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If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself?
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Why do you not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity? For now will I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I will not be.”
Footnotes