As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to She'ol shall come up no more.
But now he is dead, why should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.
For we must needs die, and are as water split on the ground, which can't be gathered up again; neither does God take away life, but devises means, that he who is banished not be an outcast from him.
before I go where I shall not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
They are high as heaven. What can you do? They are deeper than She'ol. What can you know?
For when a few years are come, I shall go the way from whence I shall not return.
If I look for She'ol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,
Shall it go down with me to the gates of She'ol, or descend together into the dust?*
For now should I have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,
Terrors have turned on me. They chase my honor as the wind. My welfare has passed away as a cloud.
Yes, he loads the thick cloud with moisture. He spreads abroad the cloud of his lightning.
Oh spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go away, and exist no more.*
The dead shall not live. The deceased shall not rise. Therefore have you visited and destroyed them, and caused all memory of them to perish.
I said, *I won't see the LORD, The LORD in the land of the living. I will see man no more with the inhabitants of the world.