1. “Does not a human being have hard service on earth? And are not his days like the days of a laborer?
2. Like a slave he longs for the shadow, and like a laborer he waits for his wages.
3. So I had to inherit months of worthlessness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
4. When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I rise?’ But the night is long, and I have my fill of tossing until dawn.
5. My body is clothed with maggots and clods of dust; my skin hardens, then it gives way again.
6. “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to an end without hope.
7. Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will not return to see good.
8. The eye of the one seeing me will not see me; your eyes are upon me, but I will be gone.
9. A cloud vanishes, and it goes away, so he who goes down to Sheol will not come up.
10. He does not return again to his house, and his place does not recognize him again.
11. “Even I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in my spirit’s anguish; I will complain in my inner self’s bitterness.