NETtext - Job - 7

7:1  "Does not humanity have hard service on earth? Are not their days also like the days of a hired man?

7:2  Like a servant longing for the evening shadow, and like a hired man looking for his wages,

7:3  thus I have been made to inherit months of futility, and nights of sorrow have been appointed to me.

7:4  If I lie down, I say, 'When will I arise?', and the night stretches on and I toss and turn restlessly until the day dawns.

7:5  My body is clothed with worms and dirty scabs; my skin is broken and festering.

7:6  My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and they come to an end without hope.

7:7  Remember that my life is but a breath, that my eyes will never again see happiness.

7:8  The eye of him who sees me now will see me no more; your eyes will look for me, but I will be gone.

7:9  As a cloud is dispersed and then disappears, so the one who goes down to the grave does not come up again.

7:10  He returns no more to his house, nor does his place of residence know him any more.

7:11  "Therefore, I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

7:12  Am I the sea, or the creature of the deep, that you must put me under guard?

7:13  If I say, "My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,"

7:14  then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions,

7:15  so that I would prefer strangling, and death more than life.

7:16  I loathe it; I do not want to live forever; leave me alone, for my days are a vapor!

7:17  "What is mankind that you make so much of them, and that you pay attention to them?

7:18  And that you visit them every morning, and try them every moment?

7:19  Will you never look away from me, will you not let me alone long enough to swallow my spittle?

7:20  If I have sinned - what have I done to you, O watcher of men? Why have you set me as your target? Have I become a burden to you?

7:21  And why do you not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust, and you will seek me diligently, but I will be gone."