[1] “How frail is humanity! How short is life, how full of trouble!
[2] We blossom like a flower and then wither. Like a passing shadow, we quickly disappear.
[3] Must you keep an eye on such a frail creature and demand an accounting from me?
[4] Who can bring purity out of an impure person? No one!
[5] You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer.
[6] So leave us alone and let us rest! We are like hired hands, so let us finish our work in peace.
[7] “Even a tree has more hope! If it is cut down, it will sprout again and grow new branches.
[8] Though its roots have grown old in the earth and its stump decays,
[9] at the scent of water it will bud and sprout again like a new seedling.
[10] “But when people die, their strength is gone. They breathe their last, and then where are they?
[11] As water evaporates from a lake and a river disappears in drought,
[12] people are laid to rest and do not rise again. Until the heavens are no more, they will not wake up nor be roused from their sleep.
[13] “I wish you would hide me in the grave and forget me there until your anger has passed. But mark your calendar to think of me again!
[14] Can the dead live again? If so, this would give me hope through all my years of struggle, and I would eagerly await the release of death.
[15] You would call and I would answer, and you would yearn for me, your handiwork.
[16] For then you would guard my steps, instead of watching for my sins.
[17] My sins would be sealed in a pouch, and you would cover my guilt.
[18] “But instead, as mountains fall and crumble and as rocks fall from a cliff,
[19] as water wears away the stones and floods wash away the soil, so you destroy people’s hope.
[20] You always overpower them, and they pass from the scene. You disfigure them in death and send them away.
[21] They never know if their children grow up in honor or sink to insignificance.
[22] They suffer painfully; their life is full of trouble.”