¹ For the music director, for Jeduthun, a psalm of David.
² I said:
“I will guard my ways, so I will not sin with my tongue.
I will muzzle my mouth while the wicked are before me.”
³ So I became utterly speechless,
kept silent even from good,
but my anguish was stirred up.
⁴ My heart was hot within me,
while I was musing, the fire burned.
Then I spoke with my tongue:
⁵ “Let me know, Adonai, my end
and what the number of my days is.
Let me know how short-lived I am.
⁶ Behold, You made my days mere hand-breadths,
and my lifetime as nothing before You.
Surely all humanity is but vapor. Selah
⁷ Everyone goes about as a mere phantom.
Surely they are making an uproar in vain, heaping up stuff—
yet not knowing who will gather it.^[a]
8 And now, my Lord, what do I wait for?
My hope is in You.
⁹ Deliver me from all my transgressions.
Do not make me the scorn of a fool.
¹⁰ I am speechless, not opening my mouth
—for You have done it.
¹¹ Remove Your scourge from me.
I perish by the blow of Your hand.
¹² With rebukes You chasten one for iniquity
and You consume like a moth what he finds pleasure in.
Surely all humanity is but a vapor. Selah
¹³ Hear my prayer, Adonai,
and listen to my cry—
do not keep silent at my tears.
For with You I am an outsider, a sojourner,
as all my fathers were.
¹⁴ Turn your gaze away from me, so I may smile again,
before I go, and am no more.”