Complaint to God

¹I loathe my life; I will let loose my complaint;

I will speak out of my own bitterness.

²I will say to God, Don’t declare me guilty;

tell me what you are accusing me of doing.

³Does 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?

⁴Do you have physical eyes;

do you see like a human?

⁵Are your days like those of a human,

your years like years of a human,

⁷You know that I’m not guilty,

yet no one delivers me from your power.

Creator

⁸Your hands fashioned and made me;

yet you want to destroy me utterly.

⁹Remember that you made me from clay,[#10.9 Or like]

and you will return me to dust.

¹⁰Didn’t you pour me out like milk,

curdle me like cheese?

¹¹You clothed me with skin and flesh,

wove me from bones and sinews.

¹²Life and kindness you gave me,

and you oversaw and preserved my breath.

No hiding place

¹³These things you hid in your heart;

I know this is the case with you.

¹⁴If I sin and you observe me,

you won’t consider me innocent of wrongdoing.

¹⁵If I were guilty, doom to me;

I’m innocent, but can’t lift my head,

full of shame and facing my misery.

¹⁶I could boast like a lion, and you would hunt me;

you would do awesome things to me again.

¹⁷You continue to send your witnesses against me

and increase your anger toward me,

Death wish

¹⁸Why did you let me emerge from the womb?

I wish I had died without any eye seeing me.

¹⁹Then I would be just as if I hadn’t existed,

taken from the belly to the grave.

²⁰Aren’t my few days coming to an end?

Look away from me so I can brighten up a little

²¹before I go and don’t return

to a land of deepest darkness,

²²a land whose light is like gloom,