Job 7  Jubilee Bible 2000

7 ¶ Man certainly has an appointed amount of time upon earth, and his days are like the days of a hireling.

² As a slave earnestly desires the shade and as a hireling waits for rest from his work,

³ so I am made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.

⁴ When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise? I measure the night, and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.

⁵ My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken and abominable.

⁶ My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and are spent without hope.

⁷ ¶ Remember thou that my life is wind and that my eyes shall not return to see good.

⁸ The eyes of those that see me now shall not see me again; thine eyes shall be upon me, and I will cease to be.

⁹ As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he that goes down to Sheol, who shall not come up again;

¹⁰ he shall return no more to his house; neither shall his place know him any more.

¹¹ Therefore, I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹² Am I a sea, or a dragon, that thou settest a watch over me?

¹³ When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint;

¹⁴ then thou dost scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions.

¹⁵ And my soul thought it better to be strangled and desired death more than my bones.

¹⁶ I loathed life; I do not desire to live for ever; let me alone; for my days are vanity.

¹⁷ ¶ What is man that thou should magnify him and that thou should set thine heart upon him

¹⁸ and that thou should visit him every morning and try him every moment?

¹⁹ For how long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone until I swallow down my spittle?

²⁰ If I have sinned, what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?

²¹ And why dost thou not take away my rebellion and pass over my iniquity? For now I shall sleep in the dust; and if thou shalt seek me in the morning, I shall not be found.