1Is there not hard service for man upon the earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired laborer?
2Like a slave who pants for the shadow, and like a hired laborer who waits for his wages,
3so I have been allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.
4When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I rise?’ But the night drags on, and I am filled with tossing until dawn.
5My flesh is clothed with maggots and clods of dust; my skin hardens, then breaks open again.
6My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to an end without hope.
7Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will not again see good.
8The eye of the one who sees me will not behold me; your eyes will be upon me, but I will be no more.
9As a cloud fades and vanishes, so the one who goes down to Sheol will not come up.
10He will not return again to his house, and his place will know him no more.
11Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12Am I the Sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me?
13When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will bear away my complaint,’
14then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions,
15So my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones.
16I waste away; I will not live forever. Let me alone, for my days are a breath.
17What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart upon him,
18that you visit him every morning and test him every moment?
19How long will you not look away from me, nor let me alone until I swallow my spittle?
20If I have sinned, what do I do to you, O watcher of humanity? Why have you made me your target, so that I have become a burden to myself?
21And why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust; you will seek me, but I will be no more.
Open in the interactive reader →