Can you play with him like a bird
or put him on a leash for your girls?

No bird of prey knows that path;
no falcon’s eye has seen it.

Or why was I not hidden like a miscarried child,
like infants who never see daylight?

Like a slave he longs for shade;
like a hired man he waits for his pay.

They sweep by like boats made of papyrus,
like an eagle swooping down on its prey.

Are Your days like those of a human,
or Your years like those of a man,

Did You not pour me out like milk
and curdle me like cheese?

It is a land of blackness like the deepest darkness,
gloomy and chaotic,
where even the light is like the darkness.”

Man wears out like something rotten,
like a moth-eaten garment.

>

He blossoms like a flower, then withers;
he flees like a shadow and does not last.