1 ARST “Life is very difficult for all of us on this earth! Like manual laborers, our days are long and hard. BSB BSB: “Is not man consigned to labor on earth? Are not his days like those of a hired hand?
2 ARST We are like slaves who keep wanting to be in the cool of evening. We are like workers who have to wait to be paid. BSB BSB: Like a slave he longs for shade; like a hireling he waits for his wages.
3 ARST Like a slave, I am enduring a time when it feels useless to be alive. I have been experiencing many miserable nights. BSB BSB: So I am allotted months of futility, and nights of misery are appointed to me.
4 ARST When I go to bed I say,‘I hope I will be able to sleep for a long time!’ But I never really get to sleep. I am restless right through to the morning. BSB BSB: When I lie down I think: ‘When will I get up?’ But the night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn.
5 ARST My body is covered with maggots and dirt; pus oozes out of my open sores. BSB BSB: My flesh is clothed with worms and encrusted with dirt; my skin is cracked and festering.
6 ARST I am running out of days faster than a shuttle releases yarn into a loom, and I have no reason to hope that my life will end well. BSB BSB: My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope.
7 ARST God, remember that my life will soon end.{ I do not think that} I will ever be happy again. BSB BSB: Remember that my life is but a breath. My eyes will never again see happiness.
8 ARST God, you see me now, but{ after I die,} you will not see me anymore. You may look for me then, but{ you will not find me, because} I will not exist. BSB BSB: The eye that beholds me will no longer see me. You will look for me, but I will be no more.
9 ARST Just as a cloud never appears in the sky again once it fades, so when people die and go to the place where dead people are, they never return to earth. BSB BSB: As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come back up.
10 ARST They never return and live in their houses again. BSB BSB: He never returns to his house; his place remembers him no more.
11 ARST So I will say everything I want to say. I will speak because I am so upset. I will complain because I am so bitter. BSB BSB: 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.
12 ARST God, you do not need to watch what I am doing so closely! I am not a dangerous sea monster! BSB BSB: Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that You must keep me under guard?
13 ARST Sometimes I think that if I could just go to sleep, I would stop suffering; my pain would be less while I was sleeping. BSB BSB: When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint,
14 ARST But then you make me have terrible nightmares! BSB BSB: then You frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions,
15 ARST And I wish someone would kill me by choking me so that I would not have to stay alive{ and suffer so much}. BSB BSB: so that I would prefer strangling and death over my life in this body.
16 ARST I hate being alive{ and suffering so much}! I do not want to live any longer! Stop afflicting me, because I will only be alive for a short time. BSB BSB: I loathe my life! I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.
17 ARST We human beings are not very important! You should not think that we are so important that you need to pay attention to what we do. BSB BSB: What is man that You should exalt him, that You should set Your heart upon him,
18 ARST You do not need to check every morning to see what we are doing! You do not need to evaluate us at every moment! BSB BSB: that You attend to him every morning, and test him every moment?
19 ARST I wish you would stop watching me and leave me alone for at least a little while! BSB BSB: Will You never look away from me, or leave me alone to swallow my spittle?
20 ARST You watch me constantly, but if I sin, that certainly does not harm you! I feel as if I am your target and that you are shooting at me! You act as if I am bothering you all the time! BSB BSB: If I have sinned, what have I done to You, O watcher of mankind? Why have You made me Your target, so that I am a burden to You?
21 ARST If I have done wrong things, you could just forgive me. I am going to die soon. When I do, then if you decide you want us to be friends, it will be too late, because I will be dead.” BSB BSB: Why do You not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For soon I will lie down in the dust; You will seek me, but I will be no more.”
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.