¹“Isn’t a man forced to labor on earth? Aren’t his 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 man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him, ¹⁸that you should visit him every morning, and test him 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.”