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¹ Weary in my soul, I will pour my words with groans upon him: I will speak being straitened in the bitterness of my soul. ² And I will say to the Lord, Do not teach me to be impious; and wherefore hast thou thus judged me? ³ Is it good before thee if I be unrighteous? for thou hast disowned the work of thy hands, and attended to the counsel of the ungodly. ⁴ Or dost thou see as a mortal sees? or wilt thou look as a man sees? ⁵ Or is thy life human, or thy years the years of a man, ⁶ that thou hast enquired into mine iniquity, and searched out my sins? ⁷ For thou knowest that I have not committed iniquity: but who is he that can deliver out of thy hands?

⁸ Thy hands have formed me and made me; afterwards thou didst change thy mind, and smite me. ⁹ Remember that thou hast made me as clay, and thou dost turn me again to earth. ¹⁰ Hast thou not poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese? ¹¹ And thou didst clothe me with skin and flesh, and frame me with bones and sinews. ¹² And thou didst bestow upon me life and mercy, and thy oversight has preserved my spirit. ¹³ Having these things in thyself, I know that thou canst do all things; for nothing is impossible with thee.

¹⁴ And if I should sin, thou watchest me; and thou hast not cleared me from iniquity. ¹⁵ Or if I should be ungodly, woe is me: and if I should be righteous, I cannot lift myself up, for I am full of dishonour. ¹⁶ For I am hunted like a lion for slaughter; for again thou hast changed and art terribly destroying me; ¹⁷ renewing against me my torture: and thou hast dealt with me in great anger, and thou hast brought trials upon me. ¹⁸ Why then didst thou bring me out of the womb? and why did I not die, and no eye see me, ¹⁹ and I become as if I had not been? for why was I not carried from the womb to the grave? ²⁰ Is not the time of my life short? suffer me to rest a little, ²¹ before I go whence I shall not return, to a land of darkness and gloominess; ²² to a land of perpetual darkness, where there is no light, neither can any one see the life of mortals.