Or [why] was I not hidden like a miscarriage, like infants [who] did not see [the] light?

My companions are treacherous like a torrent-bed; like a streambed of wadis they flow away,

Like a slave he longs for [the] shadow, and like a laborer he waits for his wages.

They go by like papyrus skiffs, like an eagle swoops down on [its] prey.

He will fly away like a dream, and they will not find him, and he will be chased away like a vision of [the] night.

[How often] are they like straw {before} the wind, and like chaff that [the] storm carries away?

They are exalted a little while, then {they are gone}. And they are brought low; they are cut off like all [others], and like [the] heads of grain they wither away.

"Let my enemy be like [the] wicked and my opponent like [the] unrighteous,

Did you not pour me out like milk and {curdle me} like cheese?

to [the] land of darkness, like [the] darkness of a deep shadow and {chaos}, so that it shines forth like darkness.'"

{I also have insight} like you; I am not more inferior than you. And {who does not know things like these}?

And he himself wastes away like something rotten, like a garment that [the] moth has eaten.

Like a flower he comes up, and he withers away; and he flees like a shadow, but he does not last.

"He will shake off his unripe fruit like the vine, and he will cast off his blossom like the olive tree;

It is changed like clay [under] a seal, and they appear like a garment.

Or do you have an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?

If he heaps up silver like the dust and fashions clothing like the clay,

"He builds his house like the moth, and like a booth [that] a watchman has made.

I chose their way, and I sat [as] head, and I dwelled like a king among the troops, like [one] who comforts mourners.

"Look, my internal organs [are] like unopened wine, like new wineskins it is [ready] to burst open.

What man [is] like Job, who drinks scorn like water?

It makes [the] deep boil like a cooking pot; it makes [the] sea like a pot of ointment.