¹“Does man not have warfare here on earth?

And are not his days like the days of a hired labourer?

²As a servant pants for shade,

And as a hired labourer awaits the wages of his work,

³So I am made to endure months of calamity,

And nights of sorrow are appointed to me.

⁴Whenever I lie down, I say,

‘When will it be time for me to get up,

And the night be over?’

For I am full of restlessness

Until the morning twilight.

⁵My flesh is clothed in worms and clods of earth;

My skin breaks up and wastes away.

⁶My days pass more swiftly than a weaver's shuttle,

And they are spent without any hope.

⁷Remember that my life is but wind;

My eye shall not see goodness again.

⁸The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more,

But your eyes will be on me,

Though I will be no more.

⁹As the cloud dissipates and vanishes,

So he who goes down to the grave

Does not ascend again.

¹⁰He does not return again to his house,

And his home place will not welcome him again.

¹¹But I too will not hold back my mouth,

I will speak in the distress of my spirit;

I will lament in the bitterness of my feelings.

¹²Am I the sea, or a sea-monster,

So that you should set a watch over me?

¹³For I have said,

‘My bed will comfort me;

My couch will ease my complaint’,

¹⁴But you terrify me in dreams

And frighten me with visions.

¹⁵My being would prefer suffocation;

It would prefer death to my intact body.

¹⁶I reject life;

I will not live on.

Leave me,

For my days are pointless.

¹⁷What is man,

That you should make him great?

– Or that you should set your heart on him?

¹⁸But you visit him every morning

And test him every moment.

¹⁹How long will you ignore me

And persist with me

Until I swallow my spittle?

²⁰I have sinned

– What can I do to you, O guardian of man?

Why have you made me an object of confrontation with you,

So that I am a burden to you?

²¹And why do you not pardon my transgression

And forgive my iniquity?

For now I shall lie down on the dust,

And you will seek me diligently,

But I will not be there.”