Job 7

Job’s Second Speech: A Response to Eliphaz

¹“Does not a human being have hard service on earth?[#Or a collective singular, “human beings”; #Literally “hard service for a human being”]

And are not his days like the days of a laborer?

²Like a slave he longs for the shadow,

and like a laborer he waits for his wages.

³So I had to inherit months of worthlessness,[#Literally “I am allotted to me”]

and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

⁴When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I rise?’[#Hebrew “and I say”]

But the night is long,

and I have my fill of tossing until dawn.

⁵My body is clothed with maggots and clods of dust;

my skin hardens, then it gives way again.

⁶“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,

and they come to an end without hope.

⁷Remember that my life is a breath;

my eye will not return to see good.

⁸The eye of the one seeing me will not see me;

your eyes are upon me, but I will be gone.

⁹A cloud vanishes, and it goes away,

so he who goes down to Sheol will not come up.

¹⁰He does not return again to his house,

and his place does not recognize him again.

¹¹“Even I will not restrain my mouth;[#Or “I on my part”]

I will speak in my spirit’s anguish;

I will complain in my inner self’s bitterness.

¹²Am I the sea, or a sea monster,

that you set a guard over me?

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

and my couch will ease my complaint,’

¹⁴then you terrify me with dreams,[#Hebrew “and”; #Or “the dreams”]

and with visions you terrify me.

¹⁵So my inner self will choose strangling—[#Or “And”; #Or “soul”; #Or “I will choose”]

death more than my existence.

¹⁶I loathe my life; I would not live forever;

depart from me, for my days are a breath.

¹⁷“What is a human being that you make him great

and that you fix your mind on him,

¹⁸so that you visit him every morning,[#Hebrew “and”; #Literally “for mornings,” or “at mornings”]

you test him every moment?

¹⁹How long will you not turn away from me?[#Literally “Like what”]

Or not leave me alone until I swallow my spit?

²⁰If I have sinned, what have I done to you, watcher of humanity?

Why have you made me as a target for yourself,

so that I have become a burden to myself?

²¹And why do you not pardon my transgression

and take away my guilt?

For now I shall lie in the dust,

and you will seek me, but I will be no more.”