Study Desk

But my brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams, as the streams that overflow

but that cease to flow in the dry season, and in the heat vanish from their channels.

How painful are honest words! But what do your arguments prove?

"But now be so kind as to look at me. Would I lie to your face?

Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again.

The eye that now sees me will see me no longer; you will look for me, but I will be no more.

Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins? For I will soon lie down in the dust; you will search for me, but I will be no more."

But if you will look to God and plead with the Almighty,

for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow.

He leans on his web, but it gives way; he clings to it, but it does not hold.

But when it is torn from its spot, that place disowns it and says, 'I never saw you.'

"Indeed, I know that this is true. But how can a mortal be righteous before God?

He would not let me regain my breath but would overwhelm me with misery.

Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot.

I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me.

"But this is what you concealed in your heart, and I know that this was in your mind:

But a witless man can no more become wise than a wild donkey's colt can be born a man.

But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and escape will elude them; their hope will become a dying gasp."

But I have a mind as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know all these things?

"But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you;