²¹ Before I go to the place from which I shall not return,
^(A)To the land of darkness ^(B)and the shadow of death,

⁵ May darkness and ^(A)the shadow of death claim it;
May a cloud settle on it;
May the blackness of the day terrify it.

²² For when a few years are finished,
I shall ^(A)go the way of no return.

¹⁰ But man dies and ^[a]is laid away;
Indeed he ^[b]breathes his last
And where is ^(A)he?
¹¹ As water disappears from the sea,
And a river becomes parched and dries up,
¹² So man lies down and does not rise.
^(B)Till the heavens are no more,
They will not awake
Nor be roused from their sleep.

^8 (A)The eye of him who sees me will see me no more;
While your eyes are upon me, I shall no longer be.
⁹ As the cloud disappears and vanishes away,
So ^(B)he who goes down to the grave does not come up.
¹⁰ He shall never return to his house,
^(C)Nor shall his place know him anymore.

⁶ Neither did they say, ‘Where is the Lord,
Who ^(A)brought us up out of the land of Egypt,
Who led us through ^(B)the wilderness,
Through a land of deserts and pits,
Through a land of drought and the shadow of death,
Through a land that no one crossed
And where no one dwelt?’

¹¹ I said,
“I shall not see ^[a]Yah,
The Lord ^(A)in the land of the living;
I shall observe man no more ^[b]among the inhabitants of ^[c]the world.