As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months.
Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful voice come therein.
Let the stars of its twilight be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,
because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
“Why didn’t I die from the womb? Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me?
Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should nurse?
For now should I have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,
with kings and counselors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves;
or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.
There the wicked cease from troubling. There the weary are at rest.
There the prisoners are at ease together. They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster.
The small and the great are there. The servant is free from his master.
“Why is light given to him who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul,
Who long for death, but it doesn’t come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
By the breath of God they perish. By the blast of his anger are they consumed.
The old lion perishes for lack of prey. The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad.
How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!
Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.
Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.’
In famine he will redeem you from death; in war, from the power of the sword.
You shall come to your grave in a full age, like a shock of grain comes in its season.
even that it would please God to crush me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!
“Isn’t a man forced to labor on earth? Aren’t his days like the days of a hired hand?
My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh.
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.
Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good.
The eye of him who sees me shall see me no more. Your eyes shall be on me, but I shall not be.
As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol shall come up no more.
He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.
so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones.
I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.
Why do you not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity? For now shall I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I shall not be.”
While it is yet in its greenness, not cut down, it withers before any other reed.
“It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked.
“Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away, they see no good.
They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey.
Are your days as the days of mortals, or your years as man’s years,
Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?
“‘Why, then, have you brought me out of the womb? I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me.
I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
Aren’t my days few? Cease then. Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,
before I go where I shall not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
the land dark as midnight, of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as midnight.’”
But the eyes of the wicked shall fail. They shall have no way to flee. Their hope shall be the giving up of the spirit.”
in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?
Behold, he will kill me. I have no hope. Nevertheless, I will maintain my ways before him.
Who is he who will contend with me? For then would I hold my peace and give up the spirit.
though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.
“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.
He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue.
Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he can’t pass;
Look away from him, that he may rest, until he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day.
Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground,
But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?
As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up,
so man lies down and doesn’t rise. Until the heavens are no more, they shall not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep.
“Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would keep me secret, until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my warfare would I wait, until my release should come.
“But the mountain falling comes to nothing. The rock is removed out of its place;
The waters wear the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man.
You forever prevail against him, and he departs. You change his face, and send him away.
His sons come to honor, and he doesn’t know it. They are brought low, but he doesn’t perceive it of them.
But his flesh on him has pain, and his soul within him mourns.”
He doesn’t believe that he shall return out of darkness. He is waited for by the sword.
He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
It shall be accomplished before his time. His branch shall not be green.
He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive tree.
“Earth, don’t cover my blood. Let my cry have no place to rest.
For when a few years have come, I shall go the way of no return.
“My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, And the grave is ready for me.
My days are past, my plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart.
If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,
If I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father;’ to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘my sister;’
where then is my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?”
The light shall be dark in his tent. His lamp above him shall be put out.
The members of his body shall be devoured. The firstborn of death shall devour his members.
He shall be rooted out of the security of his tent. He shall be brought to the king of terrors.
His roots shall be dried up beneath. Above shall his branch be cut off.
His memory shall perish from the earth. He shall have no name in the street.
He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.
He shall have neither son nor grandson among his people, nor any remaining where he lived.
He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. My hope he has plucked up like a tree.
After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God,
yet he shall perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him shall say, ‘Where is he?’
He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found. Yes, he shall be chased away like a vision of the night.
The eye which saw him shall see him no more, neither shall his place any more see him.
His bones are full of his youth, but youth shall lie down with him in the dust.
He shall suck cobra venom. The viper’s tongue shall kill him.
He shall flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow shall strike him through.
He draws it out, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him.
They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.
“How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger?
For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?
One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.
They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.
Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men shall keep watch over the tomb.
The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. All men shall draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.












