Chapter VII.
The life of man on Earth is a battle, and his days are like the days of a hired soldier. Struggling against unseen adversaries.
As the deer longs for the shadow, and as the hired worker awaits the end of his work: so have I had empty months, and I have counted laborious nights for myself. If I sleep, I say when I will rise? And again I will wait for evening, and I will be filled with sorrows until darkness. My flesh is clothed with rottenness. Similarly, I also thought to attain but for the shadow of refreshment, I encountered the heat of punishment, and for the reward of my work, I was dismissed empty.
And my skin has dried up with the filth of dust, and it has shriveled. My days have passed by faster than the weaver's loom cuts the threads, and they have been consumed without any hope. Remember, for my life is like the wind: and my eyes will not return to see good things. This also belonged to the pain of tortures, that the pus which flowed from the putrefaction of the burning wounds, infused with the filth of dust, would dry out his skin and contract it.
The sight of a man will not behold me. In that peace, and glory, wealth, and honor, where I once was, I am no longer to be seen by men.
Your eyes are upon me, and I shall not endure. Like a cloud is consumed and passes away, so he who descends to the underworld will not ascend again, nor return to his own house. For your eyes are filled with anger, and therefore they are fixed upon me, that they may heap more severe wounds upon me from my enemy.
He will no longer recognize his place. Therefore, I will not spare my mouth: I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will converse in the bitterness of my soul. Am I the sea or a whale, that you have enclosed me in a prison? If I say, my bed will comfort me, and speaking with me, I will be relieved. That is, the former way of this world, will not be changed in a man.
In my bed you will terrify me through dreams and you will shake me with horror through visions. This is what Job said he was suffering from God, which he was suffering from demons: who received the power from God to do these things, who undoubtedly appeared to him in dreams with fierce and threatening faces: gnashing their teeth, and opening their mouths as if to devour him, so that he would be shaken with horror by the unusual vision in his bed, and wake up and flee from sleep where excessive pains usually diminish, and constant sleeplessness would torment him with unrelenting torments. Whether the wounds that he saw with his waking eyes every day, the putrid pus, and the multitude of worms running through the pits of the wounds, were shown to him in his dreams by demons.
Therefore my soul has chosen hanging, and my bones death. It is better, he says, and much more tolerable for sin, if, defeated by torments, I reflect on my death, than if I inflict blasphemy on your majesty.
I despaired. I will not live any longer. I despaired, speaking these things, which I should not have said. Therefore, with this word, by which he laments himself fallen into sin, he immediately professes repentance saying:
Have mercy on me, O Lord, for my days are nothing. What is man, that you should magnify him, or that you should set your heart on him? You visit him in the morning and suddenly test him. As if you were saying: in this time, receive the one who repents, and be appeased to the one who pleads for this sin.
How long will you not spare me? That is, you do not cease from inflicting these punishments on me.
And you do not allow me to swallow my own saliva? Among other evils of pain and torture, it is said to have synanche, in which the breath of a wounded person is blocked by swelling, and often he is extinguished as if strangled by a noose.
I have sinned. What shall I do to you, O keeper of men? I have sinned in the things I have said above, which I should not have said: what can I do to you, who are just?
Why have you set me up against yourself? You have given me the opportunity to respond, so that I might say to you: Punishments that are imposed on sinners do not befit a just man; while I say these things to God: the creature to the Creator, the clay to the potter.
And I became heavy with myself. Because as a servant, I should not have answered my Lord with such a complaining voice.
Why do you not take away my sin, and why do you not remove my iniquity? Behold, now I will sleep in the dust: That is, you take away my sorrows, through which I, who was hitherto righteous, am now compelled to sin?
And if you seek me in the morning, I will not remain. After the night of this century, at the beginning of the future century, when there will be a happy resurrection of the blessed: when I am sought, I will not be found: because I will not be worthy to stand before your face, who will be rewarded with holiness. But if I have departed as a sinner, to whom you have not shown mercy before: afterwards, in the presence where the other saints are, I will no longer be.