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I will speak from the bitterness in my soul. 2 I say to God:
‘Do not condemn me,
but tell me what charges You press against me.
3 Does it seem good to You to oppress me,
and despise the work of Your hands,
while You look favourably on the schemes of the wicked?
4 Do you have eyes of flesh?
Do You see as a mortal sees?
5 Are Your days like the days of mortals,
or Your years like those of a man,
6 that You seek out my iniquity,
and search after my sin—
7 though You know that I am not wicked,
and that no one can deliver me from Your hand?
8 “Your hands made me and shaped me.
Will You now turn around and destroy me?
9 Remember, I beg You, that from the dust You formed me like clay,
and will You turn me to dust again?
10 Have You not poured me out like milk,
and curdled me like cheese?
11 You have clothed me with skin and flesh,
and knitted me together with bone and sinews.
12 You have granted me life and faithful love,
and Your care has preserved my spirit.
13 “Yet these things You have concealed in Your heart;
I know that You had this in mind:
14 If I sin, You would notice,
and would not acquit me of my iniquity.
15 I am wicked, woe to me!
And even if I am righteous, I cannot lift up my head,
for I am filled with shame.
Therefore, look upon my misery.
16 If my head is exalted, You hunt me like a fierce lion,
and again display Your awesome power against me.
17 You renew Your witnesses against me,
and increase Your indignation toward me;
enforced changes are levered upon me.
18 “Why then did You bring me out of the womb?
I wish that I had perished before any eye saw me.
19 I should have been as though I had never existed,
but had been carried from the womb to the grave.
20 Are not my days few?
Cease then and leave me alone,
so that I may find a little comfort
21 before I go to the place from where I will never return,
to the land of darkness and the shadow of death,
22 to the land of blackness like the darkness itself,
of deep shadow and disorder,
where even light is like the darkness’.”