¹ As for man, the son of woman, his days are short and full of trouble.

⁷ But trouble is man's fate from birth, as the flames go up from the fire.

²³ All his days are sorrow, and his work is full of grief. Even in the night his heart has no rest. This again is to no purpose.

⁴ How then is it possible for man to be upright before God? or how may he be clean who is a son of woman?

¹¹ Truly I say to you, Among the sons of women there has not been a greater than John the Baptist: but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

⁵ Truly, I was formed in evil, and in sin did my mother give me birth.

⁵ You have made my days no longer than a hand's measure; and my years are nothing in your eyes; truly, every man is but a breath. (Selah.)

¹⁴ What is man, that he may be clean? and how may the son of woman be upright?

⁹ And Jacob said, The years of my wanderings have been a hundred and thirty; small in number and full of sorrow have been the years of my life, and less than the years of the wanderings of my fathers.

¹⁷ So I was hating life, because everything under the sun was evil to me: all is to no purpose and desire for wind.

²⁵ My days go quicker than a post-runner: they go in flight, they see no good.

⁶ My days go quicker than the cloth-worker's thread, and come to an end without hope.

¹ Has not man his ordered time of trouble on the earth? and are not his days like the days of a servant working for payment?