[7:1] “Has not man a hard service on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired hand?
[7:2] Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hired hand 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 your eyes are on 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 anymore.
[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 you set a guard over me?
[7:13] When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’
[7:14] then you 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 forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.
[7:17] What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him,
[7:18] visit him every morning and test him every moment?
[7:19] How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?
[7:20] If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become a burden to you?
[7:21] Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be.”