Your hands shaped me, and you swallow me up
1My soul is sick of my life. I will let my complaint run loose; I will speak out of the bitterness of my soul. 2I will say to Eloah: Do not condemn me; let me know what you are charging me with. 3Does it do you good to oppress, to reject the work of your own hands and shine on the schemes of the wicked? 4Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see the way a mortal sees? 5Are your days like the days of a mortal, your years like the years of a valiant man, 6that you go looking for my guilt and hunt for my sin, 7though you know that I am not guilty, and there is no rescue from your hand? 8Your hands shaped me and made me, every part of me — and now you swallow me up. 9Remember that you made me like clay. Will you return me to the dust? 10Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? 11You clothed me with skin and flesh and wove me together with bones and sinews. 12You granted me life and kindness, and your watchful care kept my spirit.
You hunt me like a lion
13But this is what you were storing up in your heart; I know this was your purpose: 14if I sinned, you would be watching me, and you would not acquit me of my guilt. 15If I am guilty — woe to me! And if I am in the right, I cannot lift my head, full of disgrace, and look at my affliction! 16If I raise it, you hunt me like a lion, and turn back to work your wonders on me. 17You bring fresh witnesses against me and your vexation with me grows; wave after wave, an army against me. 18Why did you bring me out of the womb? I should have died with no eye seeing me. 19I would be as though I had never been, carried from the belly to the grave. 20Are my days not few? Stop, then; turn away from me, and let me have a little cheer, 21before I go, never to return, to the land of darkness and the shadow of death, 22a land of gloom like deep night, of the shadow of death and no order, where the light itself is like darkness.
