CHAPTER 10
1My whole being loathes my life.
Let me give vent to my lament.
Let me speak when my being is bitter.
2I shall say to God: Do not convict me.
Inform me why You accuse me.
3Is it good for You to oppress,
to spurn Your own palms’ labor,
and on the council of the wicked to shine?
4 Do You have the eyes of mortal flesh,
do You see as man would see?
5Are Your days like a mortal’s days,
Your years like the years of a man,
6that You should search out my crime
and inquire for my offense?
7You surely know I am not guilty,
but there is none who saves from Your hand.
8 Your hands fashioned me and made me,
and then You turn round and destroy me!
9Recall, pray, that like clay You worked me,
and to the dust You will make me return.
10Why, You poured me out like milk
and like cheese You curdled me.
11With skin and flesh You clothed me,
with bones and sinews entwined me.
12Life and kindness you gave me,
and Your precept my spirit kept.
13 Yet these did You hide in Your heart;
I knew that this was with You:
14If I offended, You kept watch upon me
and of my crime would not acquit me.
15If I was guilty, alas for me,
and though innocent, I could not raise my head,
sated with shame and surfeited with disgrace.
16 Like a triumphant lion You hunt me,
over again wondrously smite me.
17You summon new witnesses against me
and swell up Your anger toward me—
vanishings and hard service are mine.
18 And why from the womb did You take me?
I’d breathe my last, no eye would have seen me.
19As though I had not been, I would be.
From belly to grave I’d be carried.
20My days are but few—let me be.
Turn away that I may have some gladness
21before I go, never more to return,
to the land of dark and death’s shadow,
22the land of gloom, thickest murk,
death’s shadow and disorder,