Now I would be lying down and quiet; I would be asleep; then I would be at rest
before I go, never to return, to the land of gloom and deep darkness,
the land of gloom and chaos, where light is like darkness.’ ”
You prevail forever against them, and they pass away; you change their countenance and send them away.
For when a few years have come, I shall go the way from which I shall not return.
If I look for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in darkness,
For I know that my vindicator lives and that in the end he will stand upon the earth;
whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!
They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.
One dies in full prosperity, being wholly at ease and secure,
They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.
Drought and heat snatch away the snow waters; so does Sheol those who have sinned.
The womb forgets them; the worm finds them sweet; they are no longer remembered, so wickedness is broken like a tree.
The shades below tremble, the waters and their inhabitants.
Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering.
Why were there knees to receive me or breasts for me to suck?
There is no gloom or deep darkness where evildoers may hide themselves.
Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be.”
Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.
And they do not lie with the fallen warriors of long ago who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose swords were laid under their heads and whose shields are upon their bones; for the terror of the warriors was in the land of the living.