Job 14

1 A mortal born of a woman is short-lived

and full of anger.

2 Like a flower that has bloomed, he drops;

he runs off like a shadow and does not stand still.

3 Have you not taken account even of him,

and brought him into judgment in front of you?

4 For who will be clean from filth?

No one.

5 Even if his life on the earth is a single day,

his months are counted out beside you;

you have set him his span of time, and he will not go past it.

6 Stand back from him, and let him be quiet

and take some pleasure in his life, the way a hired man does.

7 For a tree there is hope:

if it is cut down, it will bloom again,

and its shoot will not fail.

8 Even if its root grows old in the ground

and its stump dies in the rock,

9 at the scent of water it will bloom,

and make a crop like a tree newly planted.

10 But a man dies and is gone;

a mortal falls, and he is no more.

11 In time the sea runs low,

and a river left empty dries out.

12 A man who has lain down will not get up

until the sky is unstitched;

they will not be woken out of their sleep.

13 If only you had kept me in Hades,

and hidden me until your anger was over,

and set me a time when you would remember me!

14 For if a man dies, he will live again,

when he has finished out the days of his life.

I will wait until I come to be again.

15 Then you will call, and I will answer you;

do not turn away the work of your own hands.

16 You have counted everything I do,

and not one of my sins will get past you.

17 You have sealed my lawless deeds up in a bag,

and marked down anything I did wrong without meaning to.

18 Even a mountain, when it falls, comes apart;

even a rock is worn out of its place.

19 Water has rubbed stones smooth,

and water has washed over the flat of the earth’s soil —

and you have destroyed a man’s endurance.

20 You pushed him to the end, and he was gone;

you set your face against him and sent him away.

21 If his sons become many, he does not know it;

and if they become few, he is not aware of it.

22 Only his own flesh has felt the pain,

and his own soul has done the mourning.