Ecclesiastes 2:20

³that no one would be moved by these afflictions. For you know that we are appointed to this task. ⁴For most certainly, when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we are to suffer affliction, even as it happened, and you know.

¹⁹If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable.

⁶“Surely every man walks like a shadow. Surely they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up, and doesn’t know who shall gather. ⁷Now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you.

¹⁴May God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may release to you your other brother and Benjamin. If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.”

⁸For we don’t desire to have you uninformed, brothers,^[+] concerning our affliction which happened to us in Asia: that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power, so much that we despaired even of life. ⁹Yes, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, ¹⁰who delivered us out of so great a death, and does deliver, on whom we have set our hope that he will also still deliver us,

¹¹My days are past. My plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart. ¹²They change the night into day, saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness. ¹³If I look for Sheol^[+] as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness, ¹⁴if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘My sister,’ ¹⁵where then is my hope? As for my hope, who will see it?