Job Continues: Life Seems Futile

1Is there not warfare to man upon the earth, and his days as the days of a hireling?

2As the servant will gape for the shadow, and as the hireling will wait for his work:

3So was I caused to possess to me months of vanity, and nights of toil were allotted to me.

4If I lay down, and I said, When shall I arise, and the evening be measured? And I was filled with tossings even to the twilight.

5And my flesh was clothed with worms, and a clod of dust; my akin was contracted and melted away.

6My days were swift above a weaver's shuttle, and will finish with no more of hope.

7Remember that my life is wind: mine eyes shall not turn back to see good.

8The eye of him seeing me shall not look after me: thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.

9The cloud will end and will go away: thus he shall go down to hades and shall not come up.

10He shall turn back no more to his house, and his place shall know him no more.

11Also I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the straitness of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

12Am I the sea, or a dragon, that thou wilt set a watch over me?

13For I said, My bed shall comfort me; my couch shall lift up in my complaint;

14And thou didst terrify me with dreams, and thou wilt make me afraid with visions:

15And my soul will choose strangling; death rather than my bones.

16I melted away; I shall not live forever: desist from me, for my days are vanity.

17What is man that thou wilt magnify him? and that thou wilt set thy heart to him?

18And thou wilt review him for the mornings, and thou wilt try him for the moments.

19How long wilt thou not look away from me? wilt thou not desist from me even to my swallowing down my spittle?

20I sinned; what shall I do to thee, guarding men? wherefore didst thou set me for an assault to thee, and I shall be upon myself for a burden?

21And why wilt thou not lift up my transgression and pass over mine iniquity? for now I shall lie down to the dust; and thou soughtest me and I was not.