| | 1 | "Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. | |
| | 2 | He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure. | |
| | 3 | Do you fix your eye on such a one? Will you bring him before you for judgment? | |
| | 4 | Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one! | |
| | 5 | Man's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed. | |
| | 6 | So look away from him and let him alone, till he has put in his time like a hired man. | |
| | 7 | "At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. | |
| | 8 | Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, | |
| | 9 | yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant. | |
| | 10 | But man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more. | |
| | 11 | As water disappears from the sea or a riverbed becomes parched and dry, | |
| | 12 | so man lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, men will not awake or be roused from their sleep. | |
| | 13 | "If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time and then remember me! | |
| | 14 | If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come. | |
| | 15 | You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made. | |
| | 16 | Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sin. | |
| | 17 | My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin. | |
| | 18 | "But as a mountain erodes and crumbles and as a rock is moved from its place, | |
| | 19 | as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy man's hope. | |
| | 20 | You overpower him once for all, and he is gone; you change his countenance and send him away. | |
| | 21 | If his sons are honored, he does not know it; if they are brought low, he does not see it. | |
| | 22 | He feels but the pain of his own body and mourns only for himself." | |
