Thou hast covered me with skin and flesh, and joined me together with bones and sinews.

Thou hast granted me life, and done me good: and the diligent heed that thou tookest upon me hath preserved my spirit.

"If I did sin, thou haddest an eye unto me, and shalt not declare me innocent because of mine offense.

Thou bringest fresh witnesses against me, and thy wrath increasest thou upon me; very many are the plagues that I am in.

before I go thither, from whence I shall not turn again. Namely, to that land of darkness and shadow of death:

Though thou hidest these things in thine heart, yet am I sure that thou rememberest them all.

Shall not my short life come so soon to an end? O hold thee from me, let me alone, that I may ease myself a little

Wherefore hast thou brought me out of my mother's womb? O that I had perished, and that no eye had seen me.

If I have done wickedly, woe is me therefore. If I have done righteously, yet dare I not lift up my head; so full am I of confusion, and see mine own misery.

It grieveth my soul to live. Nevertheless, now will I put forth my words: I will speak out of the very heaviness of my soul,

yea, into a land as dark as darkness itself, and into the shadow of death where is none order; but light there is as darkness."

and will say unto God: O do not condemn me; but show me the cause, wherefore thou contendest so with me.

If they had carried me to my grave as soon as I was born, then should I be now, as though I had never been.

Hast thou not turned me, as it were milk: and turned me to cruddes like cheese?

O remember, I beseech thee, how that thou madest me of the mould of the earth, and shalt bring me into dust again.

Thinkest thou it well done, to oppress me, to cast me off - being a work of thine hands - and to maintain the counsel of the ungodly?

Whereas, notwithstanding, thou knowest that I am no wicked person, and that there is no man able to deliver me out of thine hand.

Hast thou fleshly eyes then, or doest thou look as a man looketh?

Are thy days as the days of man, and thy years as man's years,

that thou makest such inquisition for my wickedness, and searchest out my sin?

"Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me altogether round about. Wilt thou then destroy me suddenly?

Thou huntest me out, being in heaviness, as it were a lion, and troublest me out of measure.