1"I hate my life. I will freely express my complaint. I will speak as bitterly as I feel.

2I will say to God, 'Don't condemn me. Let me know why you are quarreling with me.

3What do you gain by mistreating me, by rejecting the work of your hands while you favor the plans of the wicked?

4Do you actually have human eyes? Do you see as a mortal sees?

5Are your days like a mortal's days? Are your years like a human's years?

6Is that why you look for guilt in me and search for sin in me?

7You know I'm not guilty, but there is no one to rescue me from your hands.

8" 'Your hands formed me and made every part of me, then you turned to destroy me.

9Please remember that you made me out of clay and that you will return me to the dust again.

10Didn't you pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?

11Didn't you dress me in skin and flesh and weave me together with bones and tendons?

12You gave me life and mercy. Your watchfulness has preserved my spirit.

13But in your heart you hid these things. I know this is what you did.

14" 'If I sin, you watch me and will not free me from my guilt.

15How terrible it will be for me if I'm guilty! Even if I'm righteous, I dare not lift up my head. I am filled with disgrace while I look on my misery.

16Like a proud, ferocious lion you hunt me down. You keep working your miracles against me.

17You keep finding new witnesses against me. You keep increasing your anger toward me. You keep bringing new armies against me.

18" 'Why did you take me out of the womb? I wish I had breathed my last breath before anyone had laid eyes on me.

19Then it would be as if I had never existed, as if I had been carried from the womb to the tomb.

20" 'Isn't my life short enough? So stop [this], and leave me alone. Let me smile a little

21before I go away to a land of darkness and gloom,

22to a dismal land of long shadows and confusion where light is as bright as darkness. I'll never return.' "