The Holy Bible – Knox Translation
The Book of Psalms
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Psalm 38
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1
(To the choir-master, Idithun. A psalm. Of David.)
2
It was my resolve to live watchfully, and never use my tongue amiss; still, while I was in the presence of sinners, I kept my mouth gagged,
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dumb and patient, impotent for good. But indignation came back,
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and my heart burned within me, the fire kindled by my thoughts,
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so that at last I kept silence no longer.

Lord, warn me of my end, and how few my days are; teach me to know my own insufficiency.
6
See how thou hast measured my years with a brief span, how my life is nothing in thy reckoning! Nay, what is any man living but a breath that passes?
7
Truly man walks the world like a shadow; with what vain anxiety he hoards up riches, when he cannot tell who will have the counting of them!
8
What hope then is mine, Lord? In thee alone I trust.
9
Clear me of that manifold guilt which makes me the laughing-stock of fools,
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tongue-tied and uncomplaining, because I know that my troubles come from thee;
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spare me this punishment; I faint under thy powerful hand.
12
When thou dost chasten man to punish his sins, gone is all he loved, as if the moth had fretted it away; a breath that passes, and no more.
13
Listen, Lord, to my prayer, let my cry reach thy hearing, and my tears win answer. What am I in thy sight but a passer-by, a wanderer, as all my fathers were?
14
Thy frown relax, give me some breath of comfort, before I go away and am known no more.