7:1 “Does not man have hard service on earth? Are not his 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 am full of tossing to and fro unto the dawning of the day.
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 know him any more.
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 set a watch over me?
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 would not live forever; leave me alone, for my days are a vapor!
7:17 “What is man that you make so much of him, and that you pay attention to him?