Job 14 (New International Version)

Job 14

 ¹ "Man born of woman
       is of few days and full of trouble.

 ² He springs up like a flower and withers away;
       like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.

 ³ Do you fix your eye on such a one?
       Will you bring him ^[a] before you for judgment?

 ⁴ Who can bring what is pure from the impure?
       No one!

 ⁵ Man's days are determined;
       you have decreed the number of his months
       and have set limits he cannot exceed.

 ⁶ So look away from him and let him alone,
       till he has put in his time like a hired man.

 ⁷ "At least there is hope for a tree:
       If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
       and its new shoots will not fail.

 ⁸ Its roots may grow old in the ground
       and its stump die in the soil,

 ⁹ yet at the scent of water it will bud
       and put forth shoots like a plant.

 ¹⁰ But man dies and is laid low;
       he breathes his last and is no more.

 ¹¹ As water disappears from the sea
       or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,

 ¹² so man lies down and does not rise;
       till the heavens are no more, men will not awake
       or be roused from their sleep.

 ¹³ "If only you would hide me in the grave ^[b]
       and conceal me till your anger has passed!
       If only you would set me a time
       and then remember me!

 ¹⁴ If a man dies, will he live again?
       All the days of my hard service
       I will wait for my renewal ^[c] to come.

 ¹⁵ You will call and I will answer you;
       you will long for the creature your hands have made.

 ¹⁶ Surely then you will count my steps
       but not keep track of my sin.

 ¹⁷ My offenses will be sealed up in a bag;
       you will cover over my sin.

 ¹⁸ "But as a mountain erodes and crumbles
       and as a rock is moved from its place,

 ¹⁹ as water wears away stones
       and torrents wash away the soil,
       so you destroy man's hope.

 ²⁰ You overpower him once for all, and he is gone;
       you change his countenance and send him away.

 ²¹ If his sons are honored, he does not know it;
       if they are brought low, he does not see it.

 ²² He feels but the pain of his own body
       and mourns only for himself."