Job 14

¹ Man, born of woman, has a short life yet has his fill of sorrow.

² He blossoms, and he withers, like a flower; fleeting as a shadow, transient.

³ And is this what you deign to turn your gaze on, him that you would bring before you to be judged?

⁴ Who can bring the clean out of the unclean? No man alive!

⁵ Since man’s days are measured out, since his tale of months depends on you, since you assign him bounds he cannot pass,

⁶ turn your eyes from him, leave him alone, like a hired drudge, to finish his day.

⁷ There is always hope for a tree: when felled, it can start its life again; its shoots continue to sprout.

⁸ Its roots may be decayed in the earth, its stump withering in the soil,

⁹ but let it scent the water, and it buds, and puts out branches like a plant new set.

¹⁰ But man? He dies, and lifeless he remains; man breathes his last, and then where is he?

¹¹ The waters of the seas may disappear, all the rivers may run dry or drain away;

¹² but man, once in his resting place, will never rise again. The heavens will wear away before he wakes before he rises from his sleep.

¹³ If only you would hide me in Sheol, and shelter me there until your anger is past, fixing a certain day for calling me to mind –

¹⁴ for once a man is dead can he come back to life? day after day of my service I would wait for my relief to come.

¹⁵ Then you would call, and I should answer, you would want to see the work of your hands once more.

¹⁶ Now you count every step I take, but then you would cease to spy on my sins;

¹⁷ you would seal up my crime in a bag, and whiten my fault over.

¹⁸ But no! Soon or late the mountain falls, the rock moves from its place,

¹⁹ water wears away the stones, the cloudburst erodes the soil; just so do you destroy man’s hope.

²⁰ You crush him once for all, and he is gone; you mar him, and then you bid him go.

²¹ Let his sons achieve honour, he does not know of it, humiliation, he gives it not a thought.

²² He feels no pain for anything but his own body, makes no lament, save for his own life.