Ayub (Job) — 7

Ayub: My Suffering Is without End

1 “Is man a hired service upon the Arath, and are not his days like the days of a hired man?

2 Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hireling 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 upon me, I shall be gone.

9 As the cloud fades and vanishes, so those who die does not come back;

10 he returns no more to his house, nor does his place know him any more.

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 place 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 for ever. Let me alone, for my days are a breath.

17 “What are people, that you should make so much of us, that you should think of us so often?

18 For you examine us every morning and test us every moment.

19 Why will you not leave me alone, at least long enough for me to swallow!

20 If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of all mankind? Why make me your target? Am I a burden to you?

21 Why not just forgive my sin and take away my guilt? For soon I will lie down in the dust and die. When you look for me, I will be gone.”