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⁴When I lie down, I say: 'When shall I arise?'

But the night is long, and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.

⁵My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust;

My skin closeth up and breaketh out afresh.

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle,

And are spent without hope.

⁷O remember that my life is a breath;

Mine eye shall no more see good.

⁸The eye of him that seeth me shall behold me no more;

While Thine eyes are upon me, I am gone.

⁹As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away,

So he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.

¹⁰He shall return no more to his house,

Neither shall his place know him any more.

 

¹¹Therefore I will not refrain my mouth;

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹²Am I a sea, or a sea-monster,

That Thou settest a watch over me?

¹³When I say: 'My bed shall comfort me,

My couch shall ease my complaint';

¹⁴Then Thou scarest me with dreams,

And terrifiest me through visions;

¹⁵So that my soul chooseth strangling,

And death rather than these my bones.

¹⁶I loathe it; I shall not live alway;

Let me alone; for my days are vanity.

¹⁷What is man, that Thou shouldest magnify him,

And that Thou shouldest set Thy heart upon him,

¹⁸And that Thou shouldest remember him every morning,

And try him every moment?

¹⁹How long wilt Thou not look away from me,

Nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?

²⁰If I have sinned, what do I unto Thee, O Thou watcher of men?

Why hast Thou set me as a mark for Thee,

So that I am a burden to myself?

²¹And why dost Thou not pardon my transgression,

And take away mine iniquity?

For now shall I lie down in the dust;

And Thou wilt seek me, but I shall not be.

8 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said:

²How long wilt thou speak these things,

Seeing that the words of thy mouth are as a mighty wind?

³Doth God pervert judgment?

Or doth the Almighty pervert justice?

⁴If thy children sinned against Him,

He delivered them into the hand of their transgression.

⁵If thou wouldest seek earnestly unto God,

And make thy supplication to the Almighty;

⁶If thou wert pure and upright;

Surely now He would awake for thee,

And make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.

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