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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."