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." |