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Second Edition · Explore Scripture, one passage at a time.
7:1 “Does not humanity have hard service on earth? Are not their days also like the days of a hired man? 7:2 Like a servant longing for the evening shadow, and like a hired man looking for his wages, 7:3 thus I have been made to inherit months of futility, and nights of sorrow have been appointed to me. 7:4 If I lie down, I say, ‘When will I arise?’ And the night stretches on, and I toss and turn restlessly until the day dawns. 7:5 My body is clothed with worms and dirty scabs; my skin is broken and festering. 7:6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to an end without hope. 7:7 Remember that my life is but a breath, that my eyes will never again see happiness. 7:8 The eye of him who sees me now will see me no more; your eyes will look for me, but I will be gone. 7:9 As a cloud is dispersed and then disappears, so the one who goes down to the grave does not come up again. 7:10 He returns no more to his house, nor does his place of residence know him anymore.
7:11 “Therefore, I will not refrain 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 the creature of the deep, that you must put me under guard? 7:13 If 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 prefer strangling and death more than life. 7:16 I loathe it; I do not want to live forever; leave me alone, for my days are a vapor!
7:17 “What is mankind that you make so much of them, and that you pay attention to them? 7:18 And that you visit them every morning, and try them every moment? 7:19 Will you never look away from me, will you not let me alone long enough to swallow my spittle? 7:20 If I have sinned—what have I done to you, O watcher of men? Why have you set me as your target? Have I become a burden to you? 7:21 And why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust, and you will seek me diligently, but I will be gone.”
NET Bible Second Edition. Copyright 2017 Biblical Studies Press
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