Job 7

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¹Knighthood, that is, continual travail, and fighting against vices, is the life of a man upon earth, and his days be as the days of an hired man.

²As an hart desireth shadow, and as an hired man abideth the end of his work;

³so I have had void months, and I have numbered travailous nights to me.

⁴If I shall sleep, I shall say, When shall I rise? and again I shall abide the eventide, and I shall be full-filled with sorrows unto darknesses come.

⁵My flesh is clothed with rot, and filths of dust; my skin dried up, and is drawn together.

⁶My days have passed swifter than a web is cut down from the looms; and those days be wasted without any hope of coming again.

⁷God, have thou mind, for my life is wind, and mine eye shall not turn again, that it see goods.

⁸Neither the sight of man shall behold me; but thine eyes be in me, and I shall not be in deadly life, that is, I shall not abide alive.

⁹As a cloud is wasted, and passeth soon away, so he that goeth down to hell, shall not go up from thence;

¹⁰neither he shall turn again more into his house, and his place shall no more know him.

¹¹Wherefore and I shall not spare my mouth; I shall speak in the tribulation of my spirit, I shall talk altogether with the bitterness of my soul.

¹²Whether I am a sea, either a whale, for thou hast encompassed me with a prison?

¹³If I shall say, My bed shall comfort me, and I shall be relieved, or quieted, speaking with me in my bed;

¹⁴thou shalt make me afeared by dreams, and thou shalt shake me with horror, either hideousness, by sights.

¹⁵Wherefore my soul chose hanging, and my bones have chosen death.

¹⁶I despaired, now I shall no more live; Lord, spare thou me, for my days be nought.

¹⁷What is a man, for thou magni-fiest him? either what settest thou thine heart toward him?

¹⁸Thou visitest him early, and suddenly thou provest him.

¹⁹How long sparest thou not me, neither sufferest me, that I swallow my spittle?

²⁰I have sinned; O! thou keeper of men, what shall I do to thee? Why hast thou set me contrary to thee, and I am made grievous to myself?

²¹Why doest thou not away my sin, and why takest thou not away my wickedness? Lo! now I shall sleep in dust, and if thou seekest me early, I shall not abide.