¹I am disgusted with my life.[#10:1 Jb 7:16; 9:21; Ps 95:10; 119:158; 139:21; Ezk 6:9; 20:43; 36:31]

I will give vent to my complaint

and speak in the bitterness of my soul.

²I will say to God,

‘Do not declare me guilty!

Let me know why you prosecute me.

³Is it good for you to oppress,

to reject the work of your hands,

and favour the plans of the wicked?

⁴Do you have eyes of flesh,

or do you see as a human sees?

⁵Are your days like those of a human,

or your years like those of a man,

⁶that you look for my iniquity[#10:6 Jb 13:23,26; 14:17; 22:5]

and search for my sin,

⁷even though you know that I am not wicked

and that there is no one who can rescue from your power?

⁸‘Your hands shaped me and formed me.[#10:8 Gn 2:7,8,19; Ps 34:15; 94:9; Is 29:16; 43:1,7,21; 44:2,21,24; 45:9,11; 49:5; 64:8; Jr 1:5; 18:6; Zch 12:1]

Will you now turn and destroy me?

⁹Please remember that you formed me like clay.

Will you now return me to dust?

¹⁰Did you not pour me out like milk

and curdle me like cheese?

¹¹You clothed me with skin and flesh,

and wove me together with bones and tendons.

¹²You gave me life and faithful love,

and your care has guarded my life.

¹³‘Yet you concealed these thoughts in your heart;

I know that this was your hidden plan:

¹⁴if I sin, you would notice,[#10:14 Lit notice me]

and would not acquit me of my iniquity.

¹⁵If I am wicked, woe to me!

And even if I am righteous, I cannot lift up my head.

I am filled with shame

and have drunk deeply of my affliction.

¹⁶If I am proud, you hunt me like a lion[#10:16 Lit If he lifts up]

and again display your miraculous power against me.

¹⁷You produce new witnesses against me[#10:17 Or You bring fresh troops]

and multiply your anger towards me.

Hardships assault me, wave after wave.

¹⁸‘Why did you bring me out of the womb?[#10:18 Jb 1:21; 10:18–19; Jr 20:17–18]

I should have died and never been seen.

¹⁹I wish I had never existed[#10:19 Lit As if]

but had been carried from the womb to the grave.

²⁰Are my days not few? Stop it![#10:20 Alt Hb tradition reads Will he not leave my few days alone?]

Leave me alone, so that I can smile a little

²¹before I go to a land of darkness and gloom,[#10:21 Jb 3:5; 12:22; 28:3]

never to return.

²²It is a land of blackness like the deepest darkness,

gloomy and chaotic,

where even the light is like the darkness.’