| 1. | "Has not man a hard service upon earth, and are not his days like the days of a hireling? |
| 2. | Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hireling who looks for his wages, |
| 3. | so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me. |
| 4. | When I lie down I say, `When shall I arise?' But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn. |
| 5. | My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh. |
| 6. | My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and come to their end without hope. |
| 7. | "Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good. |
| 8. | The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more; while thy eyes are upon me, I shall be gone. |
| 9. | As the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up; |
| 10. | he returns no more to his house, nor does his place know him any more. |
| 11. | "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. | Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that thou settest a guard over me? |
| 13. | When I say, `My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,' |
| 14. | then thou dost scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, |
| 15. | so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. |
| 16. | I loathe my life; I would not live for ever. Let me alone, for my days are a breath. |
| 17. | What is man, that thou dost make so much of him, and that thou dost set thy mind upon him, |
| 18. | dost visit him every morning, and test him every moment? |
| 19. | How long wilt thou not look away from me, nor let me alone till I swallow my spittle? |
| 20. | If I sin, what do I do to thee, thou watcher of men? Why hast thou made me thy mark? Why have I become a burden to thee? |
| 21. | Why dost thou not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; thou wilt seek me, but I shall not be." |
