10 With all my heart I am weary of my life,
so I will express my complaint freely.
I will speak from the bitterness of my heart.
2 I will say this to God: Do not condemn me.
Tell me why you are pressing charges against me.
3 Is it good that you are oppressing me,
that you are rejecting what your hands have made,
at the same time that you favor the plans of the wicked?
4 Do you have eyes made of flesh?
Do you see things the way a man does?
5 Are your days like a man’s days?
Are your years like the life span of a human?
6 You do, in fact, investigate guilt,
and you do search carefully for sin.
7 Although you know that I am not guilty,
there is no one who can rescue me from your hand.
8 Your hands shaped me and made me,
but now you swallow me up completely.
9 Please remember that it was you who shaped me like a clay pot.
Will you now return me to the dust?
10 Aren’t you the one who poured me out like milk,
who thickened me like a curd of cheese?
11 You clothed me with skin and flesh.
You wove me together with bones and tendons.
12 You provided me with life and mercy,
and your watchful care has guarded my spirit.
13 You hid these things in your heart,
but I know that this is what you had in mind:
14 If I sinned and you were watching me,
you would not acquit me of my guilt.
15 If I was wicked, I would be cursed!
But even if I was righteous, I could not lift up my head,
because I am filled with shame and aware of[a] my misery.
16 If I lift myself up,[b] you hunt me down like a lion.
You turn and display amazing power against me.
17 You produce new witnesses to oppose me,
and you become more irritated with me.
You attack me with reinforcements.
18 Why, then, did you bring me out from the womb?
I wish I had died. Then no eye would have seen me.
19 I wish I had been like someone who never lived.
Then I would have been carried from the womb to the tomb.
20 Don’t I have only a few days?
Stop! Leave me alone, so that I can be happy for a short time,
21 before I walk into the land of darkness
and into the shadow of death, never to return,
22 into the land of gloom, as dark as the shadow of death,
into the land of chaos, where even light is darkness.