7:1 "Has not man a hard service upon earth, and are not his days like the days of a hireling? |
7:2 Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hireling who looks for his wages, |
7:3 so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me. |
7:4 When I lie down I say, 'When shall I arise?' But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn. |
7:5 My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh. |
7:6 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and come to their end without hope. |
7:7 "Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good. |
7:8 The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more; while thy eyes are upon me, I shall be gone. |
7:9 As the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up; |
7:10 he returns no more to his house, nor does his place know him any more. |
7:11 "Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. |
7:12 Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that thou settest a guard over me? |
7:13 When I say, 'My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,' |
7:14 then thou dost scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, |
7:15 so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. |
7:16 I loathe my life; I would not live for ever. Let me alone, for my days are a breath. |
7:17 What is man, that thou dost make so much of him, and that thou dost set thy mind upon him, |
7:18 dost visit him every morning, and test him every moment? |
7:19 How long wilt thou not look away from me, nor let me alone till I swallow my spittle? |
7:20 If I sin, what do I do to thee, thou watcher of men? Why hast thou made me thy mark? Why have I become a burden to thee? |
7:21 Why dost thou not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; |