Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
Flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not retain his strength, nor shall the mighty save his life;
The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.
Their bows will slaughter the young men; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; their eyes will not pity children.
Therefore the Lord does not rejoice over their young men, and has no compassion on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is godless and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.
Therefore I am full of the wrath of the Lord; I am weary of holding it in. “Pour it out upon the children in the street, and upon the gatherings of young men, also; both husband and wife shall be taken, the elderly and the very aged.
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah
For death has come up into our windows; it has entered our palaces, cutting off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares.
Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com.