You hunt me like a lion

¹ Since I loathe my life,

I shall pour forth my complaint;

I shall speak of my soul’s torment.

² I shall say to God: Do not condemn me,

but tell me what is your quarrel with me?

³ Would it be good for you to oppress me,

to spurn the work of your hands

and favor the designs of the wicked?

⁴ Have you human eyes?

Do you see as man sees?

⁵ Are your days as the days of man,

or your years as a mortal’s lifetime?

⁶ Why do you seek guilt in me

and search for my faults?

⁷ You know I have not sinned,

but who can rescue me from your hand?

⁸ You have formed and made me.

Will you then turn and destroy me?

⁹ Remember that you molded me from clay.

Will you turn me to dust again?

¹⁰ Did you not pour me out like milk

and curdle me like cheese?

¹¹ You wrapped me up in skin and flesh,

knit me together with bones and sinews.

¹² In your goodness you gave me life

and watched over my breathing with care.

¹³ Yet this is what you hid in your heart,

I know what was in your mind:

¹⁴ You wanted to see if I sinned,

and not let my fault be forgiven.

¹⁵ If I am guilty – alas for me!

If innocent – I dare not lift my head,

humbled and shamed in my affliction.

¹⁶ Exhausted, you hunt me like a lion,

you want to prove that you are stronger.

¹⁷ You renew your attack on me;

you intensify your rage,

wave upon wave, your forces assail me.

¹⁸ Why did you bring me out of the womb?

I wish I had died unseen,

¹⁹ a being that had not been –

carried from the womb direct to the tomb.

²⁰ Are not my days almost over?

Turn away; leave me a while to recover

²¹ before I go to the place of no return,

to the land of gloom and shadow,

²² to the land of chaos and deepest night,

where darkness is the only light.