Job: My Suffering Is Endless

¹“Is there not a time of hard service for a man upon earth?

Are not his days also like the days of a hired worker?

²Like a servant, he longs for the shade,

and like a hired worker, he looks for his wages,

³so I have been assigned months of futility,

and nights of trouble have been appointed to me.

⁴When I lie down, I say,

‘When will I arise and the night be ended?’

And I am full of restlessness until the dawn.

⁵My flesh is covered with worms and caked with dirt;[#Job 17:14; Isa 14:11]

my skin is broken, and has become loathsome.

⁶“My days fly more swiftly than a weaver’s shuttle,[#Job 9:25]

and are spent without hope.

⁷Oh, remember that my life is a breath![#Ps 78:39; Jas 4:14]

My eye will never again see good.

⁸The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;[#Job 20:9]

your eyes will be on me, but I will be no more.

⁹As the cloud disappears and vanishes away,[#Job 30:15]

so he who goes down to Sheol will come up no more.

¹⁰He will never return to his house,

and his place will not recognize him anymore.

¹¹“Therefore, I will not restrain my mouth;[#Ps 40:9]

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹²Am I the sea, or a sea monster,

that You set a guard over me?

¹³When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,

my couch will ease my complaint,’

¹⁴then You scare me with dreams

and terrify me with visions,

¹⁵so that my soul chooses strangling,

even death rather than my life.

¹⁶I loathe my life; I would not live forever;[#Job 10:1; #Job 6:9]

let me alone, for my days are emptiness.

¹⁷“What is man, that You should exalt him,

and that You should set Your heart on him,

¹⁸and that You should visit him every morning,

and test him every moment?

¹⁹How long until You look away from me?

Will You not let me alone until I swallow my saliva?

²⁰Have I sinned? What am I doing to You,

O You watcher of men?

Why have You set me as Your target,

so that I am a burden to myself?

²¹And why do You not pardon my transgression

and take away my iniquity?

For now I will lie down in the dust;

and You will seek me diligently, but I will not be.”