1: Has not man his ordered time of trouble on the earth? and are not his days like the days of a servant working for payment? 2: As a servant desiring the shades of evening, and a workman looking for his payment: 3: So I have for my heritage months of pain to no purpose, and nights of weariness are given to me. 4: When I go to my bed, I say, When will it be time to get up? but the night is long, and I am turning from side to side till morning light. 5: My flesh is covered with worms and dust; my skin gets hard and then is cracked again. 6: My days go quicker than the cloth-worker's thread, and come to an end without hope. 7: O, keep in mind that my life is wind: my eye will never again see good. 8: The eye of him who sees me will see me no longer: your eyes will be looking for me, but I will be gone. 9: A cloud comes to an end and is gone; so he who goes down into the underworld comes not up again. 10: He will not come back to his house, and his place will have no more knowledge of him. 11: So I will not keep my mouth shut; I will let the words come from it in the pain of my spirit, my soul will make a bitter outcry. 12: Am I a sea, or a sea-beast, that you put a watch over me? 13: When I say, In my bed I will have comfort, there I will get rest from my disease; 14: Then you send dreams to me, and visions of fear; 15: So that a hard death seems better to my soul than my pains. 16: I have no desire for life, I would not be living for ever! Keep away from me, for my days are as a breath. 17: What is man, that you have made him great, and that your attention is fixed on him, 18: And that your hand is on him every morning, and that you are testing him every minute? 19: How long will it be before your eyes are turned away from me, so that I may have a minute's breathing-space? 20: If I have done wrong, what have I done to you, O keeper of men? why have you made me a mark for your blows, so that I am a weariness to myself? 21: And why do you not take away my sin, and let my wrongdoing be ended? for now I go down to the dust, and you will be searching for me with care, but I will be gone.
