1. Is there not a warfare to man on earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hireling?
2. As a servant earnestly desires the shadow, and as a hireling 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 shall no more see good.
8. The eye of him who has seen me shall see me no more; Your eyes are on me, and I am gone.
9. As the cloud falls and vanishes away, so he who goes down to the grave shall come up no more.
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 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 shall comfort me, my couch shall 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 spittle?
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. And why do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? For now I shall sleep in the dust, and You shall seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.