1“Humans, born of women, live only a short time and are full of trouble.
2They grow up like a flower and are cut down. They also disappear like a shadow and don’t last.
3Do you even pay attention to such a person and bring me to judgment with you?
4Who can bring something clean from something unclean? No one.
5Since their days are decided, you know the number of their months, and you have set their boundaries that they cannot cross;
6Look away from them so they can rest, until they finish their day, like a hired worker.
7“For there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new branches will not stop growing.
8Even if its root grows old in the earth and its stump dies in the ground,
9it will still sprout new growth at the scent of water and produce branches like a young plant.
10But when a person dies, they are powerless. When a person breathes their last, where are they?
11Just as water disappears from the sea and rivers dry up and vanish,
12so a person lies down and does not get up. They will not wake up or be roused from their sleep until the heavens are no more.
13“Oh, if only you would hide me in the grave, keep me secret until your anger passes, and set a time to remember me!
14If a person dies, will they live again? I would wait all the days of my hard service until my change comes.
15You would call, and I would answer you. You would long for the creation of your hands.
16But now you count my every step. Don’t you watch over my sin?
17My rebellion is sealed up in a bag; you sew up my wrongdoing.
18“But mountains fall and crumble; rocks are moved from their place;
19water wears away stones, and floods wash away the soil of the earth. So you destroy a person’s hope.
20You overpower them forever, and they are gone. You change their appearance and send them away.
21His sons are honored, but he doesn’t know it. They are brought low, but he doesn’t realize it concerning them.
22His flesh on him feels pain, and his soul within him mourns.”