¹³ “Let me have silence, and I will speak,
    and let come on me what may.
¹⁴ Why should I take my flesh in my teeth
    and put my life in my hand?
¹⁵ Though he slay me, I will hope in him;^[a]
    yet I will argue my ways to his face.
¹⁶ This will be my salvation,
    that the godless shall not come before him.
¹⁷ Keep listening to my words,
    and let my declaration be in your ears.
¹⁸ Behold, I have prepared my case;
    I know that I shall be in the right.
¹⁹ Who is there who will contend with me?
    For then I would be silent and die.
²⁰ Only grant me two things,
    then I will not hide myself from your face:
²¹ withdraw your hand far from me,
    and let not dread of you terrify me.
²² Then call, and I will answer;
    or let me speak, and you reply to me.
²³ How many are my iniquities and my sins?
    Make me know my transgression and my sin.
²⁴ Why do you hide your face
    and count me as your enemy?
²⁵ Will you frighten a driven leaf
    and pursue dry chaff?
²⁶ For you write bitter things against me
    and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth.
²⁷ You put my feet in the stocks
    and watch all my paths;
    you set a limit for^[b] the soles of my feet.
²⁸ Man^[c] wastes away like a rotten thing,
    like a garment that is moth-eaten.

⁷ “For there is hope for a tree,
    if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
    and that its shoots will not cease.
⁸ Though its root grow old in the earth,
    and its stump die in the soil,
⁹ yet at the scent of water it will bud
    and put out branches like a young plant.
¹⁰ But a man dies and is laid low;
    man breathes his last, and where is he?
¹¹ As waters fail from a lake
    and a river wastes away and dries up,
¹² so a man lies down and rises not again;
    till the heavens are no more he will not awake
    or be roused out of his sleep.
¹³ Oh that you would hide me in Sheol,
    that you would conceal me until your wrath be past,
    that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
¹⁴ If a man dies, shall he live again?
    All the days of my service I would wait,
    till my renewal^[e] should come.
¹⁵ You would call, and I would answer you;
    you would long for the work of your hands.
¹⁶ For then you would number my steps;
    you would not keep watch over my sin;
¹⁷ my transgression would be sealed up in a bag,
    and you would cover over my iniquity.

¹⁸ “But the mountain falls and crumbles away,
    and the rock is removed from its place;
¹⁹ the waters wear away the stones;
    the torrents wash away the soil of the earth;
    so you destroy the hope of man.
²⁰ You prevail forever against him, and he passes;
    you change his countenance, and send him away.
²¹ His sons come to honor, and he does not know it;
    they are brought low, and he perceives it not.
²² He feels only the pain of his own body,
    and he mourns only for himself.”