Job 7

Job Continues: Life Seems Futile

¹“Is not man consigned to labor on earth?

Are not his days like those of a hired hand?2

²Like a slave he longs for shade;

like a hireling he waits for his wages.1

³So I am allotted months of futility,

and nights of misery are appointed to me.

⁴When I lie down I think:

‘When will I get up?’

But the night drags on,

and I toss and turn until dawn.

⁵My flesh is clothed with worms

and encrusted with dirt;

my skin is cracked and festering.

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle;

they come to an end without hope.

⁷Remember that my life is but a breath.

My eyes will never again see happiness.

⁸The eye that beholds me will no longer see me.

You will look for me, but I will be no more.

⁹As a cloud vanishes and is gone,

so he who goes down to Sheol does not come back up.

¹⁰He never returns to his house;

his place remembers him no more.

¹¹Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹²Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep,

that You must keep me under guard?

¹³When I think my bed will comfort me

and my couch will ease my complaint,

¹⁴then You frighten me with dreams

and terrify me with visions,1

¹⁵so that I would prefer strangling and death

over my life in this body.1

¹⁶I loathe my life! I would not live forever.

Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.

¹⁷What is man that You should exalt him,

that You should set Your heart upon him,

¹⁸that You attend to him every morning,

and test him every moment?

¹⁹Will You never look away from me,

or leave me alone to swallow my spittle?

²⁰If I have sinned, what have I done to You,

O watcher of mankind?

Why have You made me Your target,

so that I am a burden to You?

²¹Why do You not pardon my transgression

and take away my iniquity?

For soon I will lie down in the dust;

You will seek me, but I will be no more.”