When you turn away, they are afraid; when you take away your breath, they die and go back to the dust from which they came.

Then the LORD God took some soil from the ground and formed a man out of it; he breathed life-giving breath into his nostrils and the man began to live.

I am going to send a flood on the earth to destroy every living being. Everything on the earth will die,

But we die, and that is the end of us; we die, and where are we then?

The end of my life is near. I can hardly breathe; there is nothing left for me but the grave.

as long as God gives me breath,

You acted against the Lord of heaven and brought in the cups and bowls taken from his Temple. You, your noblemen, your wives, and your concubines drank wine out of them and praised gods made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone---gods that cannot see or hear and that do not know anything. But you did not honor the God who determines whether you live or die and who controls everything you do.

You tell us to return to what we were; you change us back to dust.

You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil produce anything, until you go back to the soil from which you were formed. You were made from soil, and you will become soil again."

Our bodies will return to the dust of the earth, and the breath of life will go back to God, who gave it to us.

Our children win honor, but we never know it, nor are we told when they are disgraced.

My days have passed; my plans have failed; my hope is gone.

Put no more confidence in mortals. What are they worth?

They captured the source of our life, the king the LORD had chosen, the one we had trusted to protect us from every invader.

Yet I do proclaim a message of wisdom to those who are spiritually mature. But it is not the wisdom that belongs to this world or to the powers that rule this world---powers that are losing their power.