1. Is there not a warfare to man on earth? And his days like the days of a hireling?
2. As a servant pants for the shade, and as a hireling looks for his wages,
3. so I am caused to inherit months of emptiness; and weary nights are appointed to me.
4. When I lie down, I say, When shall I rise up? But the night is long, and I am full of tossings, until the twilight of the dawn.
5. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken and is loathed.
6. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and are ended without hope.
7. Remember that my life is a breath; my eyes shall not return to see good.
8. The eye of him who sees me shall gaze at me no more; Your eyes are on me, and I am not.
9. As the cloud fades, it goes, so he who goes down to Sheol shall not come up.
10. He shall return no more to his house; nor shall his place know him any more.
11. Therefore, I will not hold my mouth; I will speak in the distress of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12. Am I a sea, or a sea-monster, that You set a watch over me?
13. When I say, My bed shall comfort me; my couch shall bear my complaining,
14. then You scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions;
15. so that my soul chooses strangling and death rather than my bones.
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. How long will You not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle?
20. I have sinned; what do I do to You, O Watcher of man? Why have You set me as a target for You so that I am a burden on myself?
21. And why do You not lift up my transgression, and make my iniquity pass away? For now I shall lie down in the dust, and You shall seek me; but I will not be.