¶ My breath faileth, my days are shortened. I am hard at death's door. I have deceived no man, yet must mine eye continue in heaviness. O deliver me and set me by thee: who shall then be able to thrust my hands together? Thou hast withholden their hearts from understanding, therefore shall they not be set up on high. He promiseth his friends part of his good, but his own children spend it. He hath made me as it were a byword of the common people. I am his jesting stock among them. My countenance is heavy for very anger, and the members of my body are become like a shadow. Virtuous men therefore shall well consider this, and the innocent shall take part against the hypocrite. The righteous will keep his way, and he that hath clean hands, will ever be stronger and stronger.
¶ As for you, turn you, and get you hence, for I can not see one wise man among you. My days are past, my thoughts are vanished away, which have vexed my heart, changing the night in to day, and the light into darkness. Though I tarry never so much, yet the grave is my house, and I must make my bed in the dark. I call corruption my father, and the worms call I my mother and my sister. What helpeth then my long tarrying? Or, who will fulfill the thing, that I look for? All that I have, shall go down into the pit, and lie with me in the dust.