Job - Chapter 14

¹ a human being, born of woman, whose life is short but full of trouble.

² Like a flower, such a one blossoms and withers, fleeting as a shadow, transient.

³ And this is the creature on whom you fix your gaze, and bring to judgement before you!

⁴ But will anyone produce the pure from what is impure? No one can!

⁵ Since his 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 labourer, to finish his day in peace.

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 have grown old in the earth, its stump rotting in the ground,

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

¹⁰ But a human being? He dies, and dead he remains, breathes his last, and then where is he?

¹¹ The waters of the sea will vanish, the rivers stop flowing and run dry:

¹² a human being, once laid to rest, will never rise again, the heavens will wear out before he wakes up, or before he is roused from his sleep.

¹³ Will no one hide me in Sheol, and shelter me there till your anger is past, fixing a certain day for calling me to mind-

¹⁴ can the dead come back to life? - day after day of my service, I should be waiting for my relief to come.

¹⁵ Then you would call, and I should answer, you would want to see once more what you have made.

¹⁶ Whereas now you count every step I take, you would then stop spying on my sin;

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

¹⁸ Alas! Just as, eventually, the mountain falls down, the rock moves from its place,

¹⁹ water wears away the stones, the cloudburst erodes the soil; so you destroy whatever hope a person has.

²⁰ You crush him once for all, and he is gone; first you disfigure him, then you dismiss him.

²¹ His children may rise to honours -- he does not know it; they may come down in the world -- he does not care.

²² He feels no pangs, except for his own body, makes no lament, except for his own self.

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