“For now I would have lain down and been quiet;
I would have slept then, I would have been at rest [in death],

“For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea;
Therefore my words have been incoherent,

“God is wise in heart and mighty in strength;
Who has [ever] defied or challenged Him and remained unharmed?

‘I should have been as though I had not existed;
[I should have been] carried from the womb to the grave.’

“Even after my [mortal] skin is destroyed [by death],
Yet from my [immortal] flesh I will see God,

“You have sent widows away empty-handed,
And the arms (strength) of the fatherless have been broken.

“They are the sons of [worthless and nameless] fools,
They have been driven out of the land.

“If my heart has been enticed and I was made a fool by a woman,
Or if I have [covetously] lurked at my neighbor’s door [until his departure],

(But from my youth the orphan grew up with me as with a father,
And from my mother’s womb I have been the widow’s guide),

And my heart became secretly enticed [by them],
And my hand threw a kiss from my mouth [in respect to them],

This also would have been [a heinous] sin calling for judgment,
For I would have denied God above.

“I assure you, the men of my tent have said,
‘Who can find one [in need] who has not been satisfied with his meat’?

“Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?