Job
Chapter 7
1 Doesn’t everyone have a set time to live on earth? Aren’t their days like those of a worker?
2 Like a worker who really wants rest, and like an employee eager for their pay.
3 I am given months of emptiness and nights of trouble are set for me.
4 When I go to bed, I think, “When will I get up and the night be over?” I am restless until morning comes.
5 My body is covered with worms and dirt clumps; my skin is cracked and disgusting.
6 My days go by faster than a weaver’s tool, and they end without hope.
7 Please remember my life is like the wind: I will not see happiness again.
8 The person who has seen me won’t see me again: you watch me, but I’m gone.
9 Just like a cloud disappears and is gone, so is the person who dies and will not rise again.
10 He will not go back to his home, and his place will not recognize him anymore.
11 So I won’t hold back my words; I will speak because my spirit is in pain; I will express my soul’s deep sorrow.
12 Am I the sea, or a big fish, that you keep watch over me?
13 When I say, “My bed will comfort me, my sofa will soothe my worries,”
14 You frighten me with dreams and scare me with visions.
15 So my soul prefers suffocating, and death over my life.
16 I hate it; I don’t want to live forever: leave me alone; my days are pointless.
17 Who is a person that you make so important and think so much about them?
18 You visit him every morning and test him every moment?
19 How long will you not leave me, or give me a moment’s peace?
20 I have sinned; what should I do to you, God, protector of people? Why have you made me your target, so that I am a problem to myself?
21 Why don’t you forgive my wrong and remove my sin? For soon I will lie in the earth; you will look for me in the morning, but I won’t be there.