Chapter 10

  My soul is weary of my life, I will let go my speech against myself, I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.  

  I will say to God: Do not condemn me: tell me why thou judgest me so.  

  Doth 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?  

  Hast thou eyes of flesh: or, shalt thou see as man seeth?  

  Are thy days as the days of man, and are thy years as the times of men:  

  That thou shouldst inquire after my iniquity, and search after my sin?  

  And shouldst know that I have done no wicked thing, whereas there is no man that can deliver out of thy hand.  

  Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me wholly round about, and dost thou thus cast me down headlong on a sudden?  

  Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay, and thou wilt bring me into dust again.  

  Hast thou not milked me as milk, and curdled me like cheese?  

  Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh: thou hast put me together with bones and sinews:  

  Thou hast granted me life and mercy, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.  

  Although thou conceal these things in thy heart, yet I know that thou rememberest all things.  

  If I have sinned and thou hast spared me for an hour: why dost thou not suffer me to be clean from my iniquity?  

  And if I be wicked, woe unto me: and if just, I shall not lift up my head, being filled with affliction and misery.  

  And for pride thou wilt take me as a lioness, and returning thou tormentest me wonderfully.  

  Thou renewest thy witnesses against me, and multipliest thy wrath upon me, and pains war against me.  

  Why didst thou bring me forth out of the womb: O that I had been consumed that eye might not see me!  

  I should have been as if I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave.  

  Shall not the fewness of my days be ended shortly? suffer me, therefore, that I may lament my sorrow a little:  

  Before I go, and return no more, to a land that is dark and covered with the mist of death:  

  A land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of death, and no order, but everlasting horror dwelleth.