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17 To the man he said: Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, You shall not eat from it,

Cursed is the ground[a] because of you!
    In toil you shall eat its yield
    all the days of your life.(A)
18 Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you,
    and you shall eat the grass of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
    you shall eat bread,
Until you return to the ground,
    from which you were taken;
For you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.(B)

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Footnotes

  1. 3:17–19 Cursed is the ground: the punishment affects the man’s relationship to the ground (’adam and ’adamah). You are dust: the punishment also affects the man directly insofar as he is now mortal.

Chapter 7

(A)Is not life on earth a drudgery,[a]
    its days like those of a hireling?

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Footnotes

  1. 7:1 Drudgery: taken by some to refer to military service; cf. also 14:14.

Chapter 14

Man born of woman
    is short-lived and full of trouble,[a](A)
Like a flower that springs up and fades,(B)
    swift as a shadow that does not abide.

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Footnotes

  1. 14:1 The sorrowful lament of Job is that God should relent in view of the limited life of human beings. When compared to plant life, which dies but can revive, the death of human beings is final. Job’s wild and “unthinkable” wish in vv. 13–17 is a bold stroke of imagination and desire: if only in Sheol he were protected till God would remember him! Were he to live again (v. 14), things would be different, but alas, God destroys “the hope of mortals” (v. 19).

23 Every day sorrow and grief are their occupation; even at night their hearts are not at rest. This also is vanity.

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