 1 Is there not a warfare to man on earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hired hand? 2 As a servant earnestly desires the shadow, and as a hired hand looks for his wages, 3 so I am made to possess months of vanity, and weary nights are appointed to me. 4 When I lie down, I say, When shall I rise? But the night is long, and I am full of tossing to and fro until the dawning of the day. 5 My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin is broken and has run afresh. 6 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are ended without hope. 7 Remember that my life is a breath. My eye will no longer see good. 8 The eye of him who has seen me will no longer see me. Your eyes are on me and I am gone. 9 As the cloud falls and vanishes away, so also those who go down to the grave will never come up. 10 He will no longer return to his house, nor will his place know him any more. 11 Therefore I will not hold my mouth. I will speak in the trouble of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12 Am I like the sea or a whale that you set a watch over me? 13 When I say, my bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint, 14 then you scare me with dreams, and terrify me with visions; 15 so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my life. 16 I despise them; I will not live always. Let me alone, for my days are vanity. 17 What is man, that you should magnify him, and that you should set your heart on him, 18 and visit him every morning, trying him every moment? 19 Until when will you look away from me, nor let me alone until I swallow down my spit? 20 I have sinned. What shall I do to you, O Watcher of men? Why have you set me as a target for you, so that I am a burden to myself? 21 Why do you not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? For now I will sleep in the dust, and you will seek me in the morning, but I will not be.
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