In the troubling thoughts of the dreams in the night when a deep sleep falls on men,

just as I was in my most productive time, when God’s intimate friendship was experienced in my tent,

so that they had to live in the dry stream beds, in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks.

For in truth, my words are not false; it is one complete in knowledge who is with you.

and throw your gold in the dust – your gold of Ophir among the rocks in the ravines –

how much more to those who live in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like a moth?

In time of famine he will redeem you from death, and in time of war from the power of the sword.

He shatters the great without inquiry, and sets up others in their place.

But if they are bound in chains, and held captive by the cords of affliction,

Did not the one who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us in the womb?

In the dark the robber breaks into houses, but by day they shut themselves in; they do not know the light.

“O that I could be as I was in the months now gone, in the days when God watched over me,

He will deliver you from six calamities; yes, in seven no evil will touch you.

Under the lotus trees it lies, in the secrecy of the reeds and the marsh.

Fine gold cannot be given in exchange for it, nor can its price be weighed out in silver.

“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 have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and buried my horn in the dust;

They die in their youth, and their life ends among the male cultic prostitutes.

Therefore I despise myself, and I repent in dust and ashes!

The light in his tent grows dark; his lamp above him is extinguished.