“Surely you know that it has been from old, ever since humankind was placed on the earth,

They are dark because of ice; snow is piled up over them.

Its measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and they come to an end without hope.

“My days are swifter than a runner, they speed by without seeing happiness.

He reveals the deep things of darkness, and brings deep shadows into the light.

As water disappears from the sea, or a river drains away and dries up,

my face is reddened because of weeping, and on my eyelids there is a deep darkness,

But their prosperity is not their own doing. The counsel of the wicked is far from me!

But it was he who filled their houses with good things – yet the counsel of the wicked was far from me.

They detest me and maintain their distance; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

My skin has turned dark on me; my body is hot with fever.

He spares a person’s life from corruption, his very life from crossing over the river.

to turn back his life from the place of corruption, that he may be enlightened with the light of life.

If someone wishes to contend with him, he cannot answer him one time in a thousand.

He does not expect to escape from darkness; he is marked for the sword;

He will not escape the darkness; a flame will wither his shoots and he will depart by the breath of God’s mouth.

“But if I speak, my pain is not relieved, and if I refrain from speaking – how much of it goes away?

His memory perishes from the earth, he has no name in the land.

Far from where people live he sinks a shaft, in places travelers have long forgotten, far from other people he dangles and sways.