Job 14

Man born of woman

“How frail is humanity! How short is life, how full of trouble!a ²We blossom like a flower and then wither. Like a passing shadow, we quickly disappear.b ³Must you keep an eye on such a frail creature and demand an accounting from me?

⁴Who can bring purity out of an impure person? No one!c ⁵You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer.d ⁶So leave us alone and let us rest! We are like hired hands, so let us finish our work in peace.

⁷“Even a tree has more hope! If it is cut down, it will sprout again and grow new branches.e ⁸Though its roots have grown old in the earth and its stump decays, ⁹at the scent of water it will bud and sprout again like a new seedling.

¹⁰“But when people die, their strength is gone. They breathe their last, and then where are they? ¹¹As water evaporates from a lake and a river disappears in drought, ¹²people are laid to rest and do not rise again. Until the heavens are no more, they will not wake up nor be roused from their sleep.

¹³“I wish you would hide me in the grave and forget me there until your anger has passed. But mark your calendar to think of me again! ¹⁴Can the dead live again? If so, this would give me hope through all my years of struggle, and I would eagerly await the release of death.f ¹⁵You would call and I would answer, and you would yearn for me, your handiwork.

¹⁶For then you would guard my steps, instead of watching for my sins. ¹⁷My sins would be sealed in a pouch, and you would cover my guilt. ¹⁸“But instead, as mountains fall and crumble and as rocks fall from a cliff, ¹⁹as water wears away the stones and floods wash away the soil, so you destroy people’s hope.

²⁰You always overpower them, and they pass from the scene. You disfigure them in death and send them away. ²¹They never know if their children grow up in honor or sink to insignificance. ²²They suffer painfully; their life is full of trouble.”