It scorns the tumult in the town; it does not hear the shouts of a driver.

She is harsh with her young, as if they were not hers; she is unconcerned about the uselessness of her labor.

For God deprived her of wisdom, and did not impart understanding to her.

each one is so close to the next that no air can come between them.

They lock tightly together, one to the next; they cling together and cannot be separated.

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted;

It stands still, but I cannot recognize its appearance; an image is before my eyes, and I hear a murmuring voice:

Remember that my life is but a breath, that my eyes will never again see happiness.

“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.

I loathe it; I do not want to live forever; leave me alone, for my days are a vapor!

For we were born yesterday and do not have knowledge, since our days on earth are but a shadow.

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

If a land has been given into the hand of a wicked man, he covers the faces of its judges; if it is not he, then who is it?

If I am guilty, woe to me, and if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head; I am full of shame, and satiated with my affliction.

Are not my days few? Cease, then, and leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,

to the land of utter darkness, like the deepest darkness, and the deepest shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”

For he knows deceitful men; when he sees evil, will he not consider it?

For then you will lift up your face without blemish; you will be securely established and will not fear.

Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this,

He deprives the leaders of the earth of their understanding; he makes them wander in a trackless desert waste.