Job 7 / 42
- 1
(Job Continues: My Life Has No Hope)
"Has not man a hard service on earth,
and are not his days like the days of a hired hand?
- 2
Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
and like a hired hand who looks for his wages,
- 3
so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
- 4
When I lie down I say, 'When shall I arise?'
But the night is long,
and I am full of tossing till the dawn.
- 5
My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.
- 6
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle
and come to their end without hope.
- 7
"Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.
- 8
The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;
while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.
- 9
As the cloud fades and vanishes,
so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up;
- 10
he returns no more to his house,
nor does his place know him anymore.
- 11
"Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
- 12
Am I the sea, or a sea monster,
that you set a guard over me?
- 13
When I say, 'My bed will comfort me,
my couch will ease my complaint,'
- 14
then you scare me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,
- 15
so that I would choose strangling
and death rather than my bones.
- 16
I loathe my life; I would not live forever.
Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.
- 17
What is man, that you make so much of him,
and that you set your heart on him,
- 18
visit him every morning
and test him every moment?
- 19
How long will you not look away from me,
nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?
- 20
If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind?
Why have you made me your mark?
Why have I become a burden to you?
- 21
Why do you not pardon my transgression
and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
you will seek me, but I shall not be."