Job 7

Job’s Second Speech: A Response to Eliphaz

7“Does not a human being^a have hard service^b on earth?

And are not his^c days like the days of a laborer?

²Like a slave he longs for the shadow,

and like a laborer he waits for his wages.

³So I had to inherit^d months of worthlessness,

and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

⁴When I lie down, I say,^e ‘When shall I rise?’

But^f the night is long,

and I have my fill of tossing until dawn.

⁵My body is clothed with maggots and clods of dust;

my skin hardens, then^g it gives way again.

⁶“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,

and they come to an end without hope.^h

⁷Remember that my life is a breath;

my eye will not return to see good.

⁸The eye of the one seeing me will not see me;

your eyes are upon me, butⁱ I will be gone.^j

⁹A cloud vanishes, and it goes away,

so he who goes down to Sheol will not come up.

¹⁰He does not return again to his house,

and his place does not recognize him again.

¹¹“Even^k I will not restrain my mouth;

I will speak in my spirit’s anguish;

I will complain in my inner self’s^l bitterness.

¹²Am I the sea, or a sea monster,

that you set a guard over me?

¹³When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,

and my couch^m will ease my complaint,’

¹⁴thenⁿ you terrify me with dreams,^o

and with visions you terrify^p me.

¹⁵So^q my inner self^r will choose^s strangling—

death more than my existence.^t

¹⁶I loathe my life; I would not live forever;

depart from me, for my days are a breath.

¹⁷“What is a human being that you make him great

and that you fix your mind on him,^u

¹⁸so that^v you visit him every morning,^w

you test him every moment?^x

¹⁹How long^y will you not turn away from me?

Or not leave me alone until I swallow^z my spit?

²⁰If I have sinned, what have I done to you, watcher of humanity?

Why have you made me as a target for yourself,

so that^a I have become a burden to myself?^b

²¹And why do you not pardon my transgression

and take away my guilt?

For now I shall lie in the dust,

and you will seek me, but^c I will be no more.”^d