¹⁵ all humanity would perish^(A) together
    and mankind would return to the dust.^(B)

¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow^(A)
    you will eat your food^(B)
until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.”^(C)

⁷ and the dust returns^(A) to the ground it came from,
    and the spirit returns to God^(B) who gave it.^(C)

¹⁶ I will not accuse^(A) them forever,
    nor will I always be angry,^(B)
for then they would faint away because of me—
    the very people^(C) I have created.

⁴     I am not angry.
If only there were briers and thorns confronting me!
    I would march against them in battle;
    I would set them all on fire.^(A)

³ You turn people back to dust,
    saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”^(A)
4 A thousand years in your sight
    are like a day that has just gone by,
    or like a watch in the night.^(B)
5 Yet you sweep people away^(C) in the sleep of death—
    they are like the new grass of the morning:
⁶ In the morning it springs up new,
    but by evening it is dry and withered.^(D)

⁷ We are consumed by your anger
    and terrified by your indignation.
⁸ You have set our iniquities before you,
    our secret sins^(E) in the light of your presence.^(F)
9 All our days pass away under your wrath;
    we finish our years with a moan.^(G)
10 Our days may come to seventy years,^(H)
    or eighty,^(I) if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,^(J)
    for they quickly pass, and we fly away.^(K)

²³ I know you will bring me down to death,^(A)
    to the place appointed for all the living.^(B)

⁹ Remember that you molded me like clay.^(A)
    Will you now turn me to dust again?^(B)

²² It is all the same; that is why I say,
    ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’^(A)