Look, you make my days short-lived, ¹  and my life span is nothing from your perspective. ²  Surely all people, even those who seem secure, are nothing but vapor. ³ 

You severely discipline people for their sins; ¹  like a moth you slowly devour their strength. ²  Surely all people are a mere vapor. (Selah)

God looks down from heaven ¹  at the human race, ²  to see if there is anyone who is wise ³  and seeks God. ⁴ 

I am surrounded by lions; I lie down ¹  among those who want to devour me; ²  men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are a sharp sword. ³ 

For the music director; according to the al-tashcheth style; ²  a prayer ³  of David. Do you rulers really pronounce just decisions? ⁴  Do you judge people ⁵  fairly?

Men are nothing but a mere breath; human beings are unreliable. ¹  When they are weighed in the scales, all of them together are lighter than air. ² 

For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge, and skill; however, he must hand over ¹  the fruit of his labor ²  as an inheritance ³  to someone else who did not work for it. This also is futile, and an awful injustice! ⁴ 

Whatever has happened was foreordained, ¹  and what happens to a person ²  was also foreknown. It is useless for him to argue with God about his fate because God is more powerful than he is. ³ 

What I have continually sought, I have not found; I have found only ¹  one upright ²  man among a thousand, but I have not found one upright woman among all of them.

Who is ¹  a ²  wise person? Who knows the solution ³  to a problem? ⁴  A person’s wisdom brightens his appearance, ⁵  and softens ⁶  his harsh countenance. ⁷ 

I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said, “Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated, and houses are uninhabited, and the land is ruined and devastated,

The Egyptians are mere humans, not God; their horses are made of flesh, not spirit. The Lord will strike with ¹  his hand; the one who helps will stumble and the one being helped will fall. Together they will perish. ² 

Assyria will fall by a sword, but not one human-made; ¹  a sword not made by humankind will destroy them. ²  They will run away from this sword ³  and their young men will be forced to do hard labor.

They have burned the gods of the nations, ¹  for they are not really gods, but only the product of human hands manufactured from wood and stone. That is why the Assyrians could destroy them. ² 

“I thought, ‘I will no longer see the Lord ¹  in the land of the living, I will no longer look on humankind with the inhabitants of the world. ² 

A carpenter takes measurements; ¹  he marks out an outline of its form; ²  he scrapes ³  it with chisels, and marks it with a compass. He patterns it after the human form, ⁴  like a well-built human being, and puts it in a shrine. ⁵ 

“I, I am the one who consoles you. ¹  Why are you afraid of mortal men, of mere human beings who are as short-lived as grass? ² 

The people who do this will be blessed, ¹  the people who commit themselves to obedience, ²  who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it, who refrain from doing anything that is wrong. ³ 

All these idolaters ¹  will prove to be stupid and ignorant. Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made. For the image he forges is merely a sham. ²  There is no breath in any of those idols. ³ 

“Indeed, a time is coming,” ¹  says the Lord, ²  “when I will cause people and animals to sprout up in the lands of Israel and Judah. ³