7“Do not human beings have a hard service on earth, and are not their days like the days of a laborer? 2Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like laborers who look for their wages, 3so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me. 4When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I rise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing until dawn. 5My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out again. 6My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and come to their end without hope.
7“Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good. 8The eye that beholds me will see me no more; while your eyes are upon me, I shall be gone. 9As the cloud fades and vanishes, so those who go down to Sheol do not come up; 10they return no more to their houses, nor do their places know them any more. 11“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12Am I the Sea, or the Dragon, that you set a guard over me? 13When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ 14then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, 15so that I would choose strangling and death rather than this body. 16I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, for my days are a breath.
17What are human beings, that you make so much of them, that you set your mind on them, 18visit them every morning, test them every moment? 19Will you not look away from me for a while, let me alone until I swallow my spittle? 20If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity? Why have you made me your target? Why have I become a burden to you? 21Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be.”
8Then Bildad the Shuhite answered: 2“How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind? 3Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right? 4If your children sinned against him, he delivered them into the power of their transgression. 5If you will seek God and make supplication to the Almighty, 6if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore to you your rightful place. 7Though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great.
8“For inquire now of bygone generations, and consider what their ancestors have found; 9for we are but of yesterday, and we know nothing, for our days on earth are but a shadow. 10Will they not teach you and tell you and utter words out of their understanding? 11“Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh? Can reeds flourish where there is no water? 12While yet in flower and not cut down, they wither before any other plant. 13Such are the paths of all who forget God; the hope of the godless shall perish. 14Their confidence is gossamer, a spider’s house their trust. 15If one leans against its house, it will not stand; if one lays hold of it, it will not endure. 16The wicked thrive before the sun, and their shoots spread over the garden. 17Their roots twine around the stoneheap; they live among the rocks. 18If they are destroyed from their place, then it will deny them, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’ 19See, these are their happy ways, and out of the earth still others will spring.
20“See, God will not reject a blameless person, nor take the hand of evildoers. 21He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouts of joy. 22Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”
From the oremus Bible Browser https://bible.oremus.org v2.9.2 30 June 2021.