Chapter 10

¹My soul is weary of my life, I will let go my speech against myself, I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. ²I will say to God: Do not condemn me: tell me why thou judgest me so. ³Doth it seem good to thee that thou shouldst calumniate me, and oppress me, the work of thy own hands, and help the counsel of the wicked? ⁴Hast thou eyes of flesh: or, shalt thou see as man seeth? ⁵Are thy days as the days of man, and are thy years as the times of men: ⁶That thou shouldst inquire after my iniquity, and search after my sin? ⁷And shouldst know that I have done no wicked thing, whereas there is no man that can deliver out of thy hand. ⁸Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me wholly round about, and dost thou thus cast me down headlong on a sudden? ⁹Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay, and thou wilt bring me into dust again. ¹⁰Hast thou not milked me as milk, and curdled me like cheese? ¹¹Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh: thou hast put me together with bones and sinews: ¹²Thou hast granted me life and mercy, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit. ¹³Although thou conceal these things in thy heart, yet I know that thou rememberest all things. ¹⁴If I have sinned and thou hast spared me for an hour: why dost thou not suffer me to be clean from my iniquity? ¹⁵And if I be wicked, woe unto me: and if just, I shall not lift up my head, being filled with affliction and misery. ¹⁶And for pride thou wilt take me as a lioness, and returning thou tormentest me wonderfully. ¹⁷Thou renewest thy witnesses against me, and multipliest thy wrath upon me, and pains war against me. ¹⁸Why didst thou bring me forth out of the womb: O that I had been consumed that eye might not see me! ¹⁹I should have been as if I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave. ²⁰Shall not the fewness of my days be ended shortly? suffer me, therefore, that I may lament my sorrow a little: ²¹Before I go, and return no more, to a land that is dark and covered with the mist of death: ²²A land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death, and no order, but everlasting horror dwelleth.