Job: My suffering is without consolation
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Is there not hard labor for every person on earth? Are not his days like the days of a hired man?
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Like a slave earnestly desires the shadows of evening, like a hired man looks for his wages-
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so I have been made to endure months of misery; I have been given trouble-filled nights.
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When I lie down, I say to myself, ‘When will I get up and when will the night be gone?’ I am full of tossing to and fro until the day’s dawning.
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My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; the sores in my skin harden up and then dissolve and run afresh.
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My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they pass without hope.
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God, call to mind that my life is only a breath; my eye will no more see good.
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The eye of God, who sees me, will see me no more; God’s eyes will be on me, but I will not exist.
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As a cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol will come up no more.
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He will return no more to his house; neither will his place know him again.
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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.
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Am I the sea or a sea monster that you place a guard over me?
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When I say, ’My bed will comfort me, and my couch will ease my complaint,’
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then you scare me with dreams and terrify me through visions,
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so that I would choose strangling and death rather than preserving these bones of mine.
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I loathe my life; I would not wish to always be alive; let me alone for my days are useless.
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What is man that you should pay attention to him, that you should set your mind on him,
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that you should observe him every morning and test him every moment?
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How long will it be before you look away from me, before you let me alone long enough for me to swallow down my own saliva?
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Even if I have sinned, what would that do to you, you who watch men? Why have you made a target of me, so that I am a burden for you?
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Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now will I lie down in the dust; you will seek me carefully, but I will not exist.”
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