1 ARST I am tired of living, so I will freely express everything I want to complain about{ without worrying about what God will do to me}. Yes, I will say exactly how unhappy I am. BSB BSB: “I loathe my own life; I will express my complaint and speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2 ARST I will say to God,‘If you are going to punish me, you should tell me what I have done wrong!’ BSB BSB: I will say to God: Do not condemn me! Let me know why You prosecute me.
3 ARST You seem to think that it is all right to harm me and to abandon me, whom you created. But at the same time, you seem pleased to allow wicked people to do the things that they plan to do! BSB BSB: Does it please You to oppress me, to reject the work of Your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked?
4 ARST Certainly you know and understand more than what people can see with their eyes!{ So you should understand my true motives and know that I am innocent.} BSB BSB: Do You have eyes of flesh? Do You see as man sees?
5 ARST You do not live for only a short time as people do! BSB BSB: Are Your days like those of a mortal, or Your years like those of a man,
6 ARST So you do not need to act as if you would run out of time if you did not discover all of my sins right away! BSB BSB: that You should seek my iniquity and search out my sin—
7 ARST { You do not need to work hard to discover any sins that I may have committed, because} you know that I am not guilty. And there is no one who could help me get away from you{ if you decided you should punish me}. BSB BSB: though You know that I am not guilty, and there is no deliverance from Your hand?
8 ARST You personally created every single part of me. So it is not right for you to destroy someone whom you created yourself. BSB BSB: Your hands shaped me and altogether formed me. Would You now turn and destroy me?
9 ARST Please recall how you made me! You molded me the way people mold objects out of clay. If you destroy me, I will crumble into dust{ and you will lose your marvelous creative work}. BSB BSB: Please remember that You molded me like clay. Would You now return me to dust?
10 ARST You made me through a careful process, the way people carefully make cheese out of milk. BSB BSB: Did You not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese?
11 ARST You attached my bones together with tendons, and then you covered them with flesh inside my skin. BSB BSB: You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12 ARST You are the one who made me alive.{ It seemed that} you were faithfully taking care of me.{ It seemed that} you were protecting me. BSB BSB: You have granted me life and loving devotion, and Your care has preserved my spirit.
13 ARST But you kept secret what you were planning to do to me. I am certain that you were planning to do these things to me! BSB BSB: Yet You concealed these things in Your heart, and I know that this was in Your mind:
14 ARST You were watching me to see if I would sin so that you could punish me for sinning. BSB BSB: If I sinned, You would take note, and would not acquit me of my iniquity.
15 ARST If I am a wicked man, then I hope that terrible things will happen to me. But even if I am a good man, I must still act ashamed because you are punishing me as if I had sinned. BSB BSB: If I am guilty, woe to me! And even if I am righteous, I cannot lift my head. I am full of shame and aware of my affliction.
16 ARST If I did act like the good man that I am, you would{ conclude that you should punish me further and you would} hunt for me the way a lion hunts for some animal to kill.{ When you caught me,} you would do even more things to harm me greatly. BSB BSB: Should I hold my head high, You would hunt me like a lion, and again display Your power against me.
17 ARST You would claim that I had committed even more sins. You would become even more angry with me. You would keep punishing me in new ways. BSB BSB: You produce new witnesses against me and multiply Your anger toward me. Hardships assault me in wave after wave.
18 ARST God, you should not have allowed my mother to give birth to me! I wish that I had died at birth! Yes, I wish that my parents had never shown me to anyone. BSB BSB: Why then did You bring me from the womb? Oh, that I had died, and no eye had seen me!
19 ARST I wish that I had never even existed! I wish that I had died at birth so that people had buried me right away. BSB BSB: If only I had never come to be, but had been carried from the womb to the grave.
20 ARST I am not going to live very much longer! So please leave me alone and let me have a little peace. BSB BSB: Are my days not few? Withdraw from me, that I may have a little comfort,
21 ARST { Let me have some peace now because} soon I will go to the place from which I will never return. In that place{ where dead people go} it is always gloomy. Yes, it is very dark. BSB BSB: before I go—never to return—to a land of darkness and gloom,
22 ARST Yes, in that place it is very dark, the way it is in deep shadow. Things are very chaotic there. Even the small light that is there is like darkness.’” BSB BSB: to a land of utter darkness, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.