1. "Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.
2. He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
3. Do you fix your eye on such a one? Will you bring him before you for judgment?
4. Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!
6. So look away from him and let him alone, till he has put in his time like a hired man.
8. Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil,
9. yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.
10. But man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.
11. As water disappears from the sea or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,
15. You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made.
16. Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sin.
17. My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin.
18. "But as a mountain erodes and crumbles and as a rock is moved from its place,
19. as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy man's hope.
20. You overpower him once for all, and he is gone; you change his countenance and send him away.
21. If his sons are honored, he does not know it; if they are brought low, he does not see it.
22. He feels but the pain of his own body and mourns only for himself."