¹⁰ Our days may come to seventy years,^(A)
    or eighty,^(B) if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,^(C)
    for they quickly pass, and we fly away.^(D)

³⁹ He remembered that they were but flesh,^(A)
    a passing breeze^(B) that does not return.

²⁴ For a little while they are exalted, and then they are gone;^(A)
    they are brought low and gathered up like all others;^(B)
    they are cut off like heads of grain.^(C)

¹⁰ But a man dies and is laid low;^(A)
    he breathes his last and is no more.^(B)

¹² Like a shepherd’s tent^(A) my house
    has been pulled down^(B) and taken from me.
Like a weaver I have rolled^(C) up my life,
    and he has cut me off from the loom;^(D)
    day and night^(E) you made an end of me.

² before the sun and the light
    and the moon and the stars grow dark,
    and the clouds return after the rain;
³ when the keepers of the house tremble,
    and the strong men stoop,
when the grinders cease because they are few,
    and those looking through the windows grow dim;
⁴ when the doors to the street are closed
    and the sound of grinding fades;
when people rise up at the sound of birds,
    but all their songs grow faint;^(A)
5 when people are afraid of heights
    and of dangers in the streets;
when the almond tree blossoms
    and the grasshopper drags itself along
    and desire no longer is stirred.
Then people go to their eternal home^(B)
    and mourners^(C) go about the streets.

⁶ Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
    and the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
    and the wheel broken at the well,
⁷ and the dust returns^(D) to the ground it came from,
    and the spirit returns to God^(E) who gave it.^(F)