Job
14
- "Man born of woman is of few days and
full of trouble.
- He springs up like a flower and withers
away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
- Do you fix your eye on such a one? Will
you bring him before you for judgment ?
- Who can bring what is pure from the impure?
No one !
- Man's days are determined; you have decreed
the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.
- So look away from him and let him alone,
till he has put in his time like a hired man.
- "At least there is hope for a tree:
If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.
- Its roots may grow old in the ground and
its stump die in the soil,
- yet at the scent of water it will bud and
put forth shoots like a plant.
- But man dies and is laid low; he breathes
his last and is no more.
- As water disappears from the sea or a riverbed
becomes parched and dry,
- so man lies down and does not rise; till
the heavens are no more, men will not awake or be roused from their sleep.
- "If only you would hide me in the grave
and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time
and then remember me !
- If a man dies, will he live again? All the
days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come.
- You will call and I will answer you; you
will long for the creature your hands have made.
- Surely then you will count my steps but
not keep track of my sin.
- My offenses will be sealed up in a bag;
you will cover over my sin.
- "But as a mountain erodes and crumbles
and as a rock is moved from its place,
- as water wears away stones and torrents
wash away the soil, so you destroy man's hope.
- You overpower him once for all, and he is
gone; you change his countenance and send him away.
- If his sons are honored, he does not know
it; if they are brought low, he does not see it.
- He feels but the pain of his own body and
mourns only for himself."
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