New Living Translation

1 “How frail is humanity!<br>How short is life, how full of trouble!<br> 2 We blossom like a flower and then wither.<br>Like a passing shadow, we quickly disappear.<br> 3 Must you keep an eye on such a frail creature<br>and demand an accounting from me?<br> 4 Who can bring purity out of an impure person?<br>No one!<br> 5 You have decided the length of our lives.<br>You know how many months we will live,<br>and we are not given a minute longer.<br> 6 So leave us alone and let us rest!<br>We are like hired hands, so let us finish our work in peace.<br> 7 “Even a tree has more hope!<br>If it is cut down, it will sprout again<br>and grow new branches.<br> 8 Though its roots have grown old in the earth<br>and its stump decays,<br> 9 at the scent of water it will bud<br>and sprout again like a new seedling.<br> 10 “But when people die, their strength is gone.<br>They breathe their last, and then where are they?<br> 11 As water evaporates from a lake<br>and a river disappears in drought,<br> 12 people are laid to rest and do not rise again.<br>Until the heavens are no more, they will not wake up<br>nor be roused from their sleep.<br> 13 “I wish you would hide me in the grave<br>and forget me there until your anger has passed.<br>But mark your calendar to think of me again!<br> 14 Can the dead live again?<br>If so, this would give me hope through all my years of struggle,<br>and I would eagerly await the release of death.<br> 15 You would call and I would answer,<br>and you would yearn for me, your handiwork.<br> 16 For then you would guard my steps,<br>instead of watching for my sins.<br> 17 My sins would be sealed in a pouch,<br>and you would cover my guilt.<br> 18 “But instead, as mountains fall and crumble<br>and as rocks fall from a cliff,<br> 19 as water wears away the stones<br>and floods wash away the soil,<br>so you destroy people’s hope.<br> 20 You always overpower them, and they pass from the scene.<br>You disfigure them in death and send them away.<br> 21 They never know if their children grow up in honor<br>or sink to insignificance.<br> 22 They suffer painfully;<br>their life is full of trouble.”<br>