Job 7

¹Is not life on earth a drudgery,[#Jb 14:14.; #: taken by some to refer to military service; cf. also 14:14.]

its days like those of a hireling?

²Like a slave who longs for the shade,

a hireling who waits for wages,

³So I have been assigned months of futility,

and troubled nights have been counted off for me.

⁴When I lie down I say, “When shall I arise?”

then the night drags on;

I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.

⁵My flesh is clothed with worms and scabs;[#Jb 2:7–8.]

my skin cracks and festers;

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle;

they come to an end without hope.

⁷Remember that my life is like the wind;[#Ps 144:4.]

my eye will not see happiness again.

⁸The eye that now sees me shall no more behold me;

when your eye is on me, I shall be gone.

⁹As a cloud dissolves and vanishes,[#Jb 10:21; 14:10–12; 2 Sm 12:23; 14:14; Wis 2:1.]

so whoever goes down to Sheol shall not come up.

¹⁰They shall not return home again;

their place shall know them no more.

¹¹My own utterance I will not restrain;

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹²Am I the Sea, or the dragon,[#Job now speaks not to his friends (who never speak to God), but to God. He does this frequently; cf. 9:28; 10:2–22; 13:20–28; 14:13–22.]

that you place a watch over me?

¹³When I say, “My bed shall comfort me,

my couch shall ease my complaint,”

¹⁴Then you frighten me with dreams

and terrify me with visions,

¹⁵So that I should prefer strangulation

and death rather than my existence.

¹⁶I waste away: I will not live forever;[#Jb 14:1–2, 5.]

let me alone, for my days are but a breath.

¹⁷What are human beings, that you make much of them,[#An ironic allusion to Ps 8:5.]

or pay them any heed?

¹⁸You observe them every morning[#Ps 17:3.]

and try them at every moment!

¹⁹How long before you look away from me,

and let me alone till I swallow my spit?

²⁰If I sin, what do I do to you,

O watcher of mortals?

Why have you made me your target?

Why should I be a burden for you?

²¹Why do you not pardon my offense,

or take away my guilt?

For soon I shall lie down in the dust;

and should you seek me I shall be gone.