¹“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble. ²He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue. ³Do you open your eyes on such a one, and bring me into judgment with you? ⁴Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. ⁵Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he can’t pass. ⁶Look away from him, that he may rest, until he accomplishes, as a hireling, his day. ⁷“For there is hope for a tree if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, that the tender branch of it will not cease. ⁸Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground, ⁹yet through the scent of water it will bud, and sprout boughs like a plant. ¹⁰But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he? ¹¹As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up, ¹²so man lies down and doesn’t rise. Until the heavens are no more, they will not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep. ¹³“Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would keep me secret until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time and remember me! ¹⁴If a man dies, will he live again? I would wait all the days of my warfare, until my release should come. ¹⁵You would call, and I would answer you. You would have a desire for the work of your hands. ¹⁶But now you count my steps. Don’t you watch over my sin? ¹⁷My disobedience is sealed up in a bag. You fasten up my iniquity. ¹⁸“But the mountain falling comes to nothing. The rock is removed out of its place. ¹⁹The waters wear the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man. ²⁰You forever prevail against him, and he departs. You change his face, and send him away. ²¹His sons come to honor, and he doesn’t know it. They are brought low, but he doesn’t perceive it of them. ²²But his flesh on him has pain, and his soul within him mourns.”