¹“Isn’t a person forced to labor on earth?

Aren’t their days like the days of a hired hand?

²As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow,

as a hireling who looks for his wages,

³so I am made to possess months of misery,

wearisome nights are appointed to me.

⁴When I lie down, I say,

‘When will I arise, and the night be gone?’

I toss and turn until the dawning of the day.

⁵My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust.

My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh.

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,

and are spent without hope.

⁷Oh remember that my life is a breath.

My eye will no more see good.

⁸The eye of him who sees me will see me no more.

Your eyes will be on me, but I will not be.

⁹As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away,

so he who goes down to Sheol will come up no more.

¹⁰He will return no more to his house,

neither will his place know him any more.

¹¹“Therefore I will not keep silent.

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit.

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹²Am I a sea, or a sea monster,

that you put a guard over me?

¹³When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me.

My couch will ease my complaint,’

¹⁴then you scare me with dreams

and terrify me through visions,

¹⁵so that my soul chooses strangling,

death rather than my bones.

¹⁶I loathe my life.

I don’t want to live forever.

Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.

¹⁷What is humankind, that you should magnify them,

that you should set your mind on them,

¹⁸that you should visit them every morning,

and test them every moment?

¹⁹How long will you not look away from me,

nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle?

²⁰If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men?

Why have you set me as a mark for you,

so that I am a burden to myself?

²¹Why do you not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity?

For now will I lie down in the dust.

You will seek me diligently, but I will not be.”