Study Desk

so I am caused to inherit months of emptiness; and weary nights are appointed to me.

When I lie down, I say, When shall I rise up? But the night is long, and I am full of tossings, until the twilight of the dawn.

The eye of him who sees me shall gaze at me no more; Your eyes are on me, and I am not.

Am I a sea, or a sea-monster, that You set a watch over me?

I have sinned; what do I do to You, O Watcher of man? Why have You set me as a target for You so that I am a burden on myself?

If I justify myself, my mouth will condemn me; though I am perfect, He shall declare me perverse;

I am afraid of all my sorrows; I know that You will not hold me innocent;

For He is not a man, as I am, that I should answer Him; that we should come together in judgment;

then I would speak, and not fear Him; for I am not so in myself.

You know that I am not wicked; and there is no one delivering out of Your hand.

If I am wrong, woe to me! And if I am righteous, I will not lift up my head, being filled with shame and seeing my pain.

For you have said, My doctrine is pure; and, I am clean in Your eyes.

I am a laughingstock to his friend; he calls on God, and He answers him; the just, the upright one is a mockery;

He has also set me as a byword of the peoples, and I am a spitting to the faces.

Behold, I cry out, Violence! And I am not answered; I cry aloud, but there is no justice.

The tenants in my house, even my slave-girls, count me as a foreigner; I am an alien in their eyes.

And if I remember, I am dismayed; and trembling seizes on my flesh.

But He knows the way with me. When I am tried, I shall come forth as gold.

On account of this I am troubled from His presence; I consider, and am in dread of Him.

And now I am their song; yea, I am their byword.