1 "Man, born of a woman, is short of days and full of turmoil.
2 Like a flower he springs up and is cut off; he flits like a shadow and does not stay.
3 Yet on such a one you fix your eyes, and you bring me into judgment with you?
4 Who can bring what is clean out of what is unclean? No one.
5 If his days are decided and the number of his months lies with you, and you have set his bounds that he cannot cross,
6 then turn your gaze from him and let him cease, until, like a hired hand, he has the pleasure of his day.
7 For a tree there is hope: if it is cut down, it will shoot up again, and its new growth will not cease.
8 Though its root ages in the ground and its stump dies in the soil,
9 from the smell of water it will bud and send out branches like a sapling.
10 But a man dies and lies prostrate; a man expires, and where is he?
11 Waters run out of a lake, and a river drains away and dries up;
12 so man lies down and does not get up; till the heavens are gone they will not wake, nor be stirred from their sleep.
13 If only you would hide me in Sheol, conceal me until your wrath turns back, appoint me a set time and then remember me!
14 If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I would wait, till my release came.
15 You would call, and I would answer you; you would yearn for the work of your hands.
16 For now you count my steps; would you not then stop watching for my sin?
17 My transgression would be sealed in a pouch, and you would plaster over my iniquity.
18 Yet a mountain falls and wastes away, and a rock is shifted from its place;
19 water grinds down stones, its floods sweep away the soil of the land; so you make the hope of man perish.
20 You overpower him for good, and he departs; you alter his face and send him off.
21 His sons are honored, and he does not know it; they are humbled, and he is not aware of them.
22 Only his own flesh pains him, and his own soul mourns for him."