Job 14

¹“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.

²He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue.

³Do you open your eyes on such a one, and bring me into judgment with you?

⁴Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.

⁵Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he can’t pass.

⁶Look away from him, that he may rest, until he accomplishes, as a hireling, his day.

⁷“For there is hope for a tree if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, that the tender branch of it will not cease.

⁸Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground,

⁹yet through the scent of water it will bud, and sprout boughs like a plant.

¹⁰But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?

¹¹As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up,

¹²so man lies down and doesn’t rise. Until the heavens are no more, they will not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep.

¹³“Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would keep me secret until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time and remember me!

¹⁴If a man dies, will he live again? I would wait all the days of my warfare, until my release should come.

¹⁵You would call, and I would answer you. You would have a desire for the work of your hands.

¹⁶But now you count my steps. Don’t you watch over my sin?

¹⁷My disobedience is sealed up in a bag. You fasten up my iniquity.

¹⁸“But the mountain falling comes to nothing. The rock is removed out of its place.

¹⁹The waters wear the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man.

²⁰You forever prevail against him, and he departs. You change his face, and send him away.

²¹His sons come to honor, and he doesn’t know it. They are brought low, but he doesn’t perceive it of them.

²²But his flesh on him has pain, and his soul within him mourns.”