Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

14 Job: Humankind, born of woman,
        has a few brief years with much suffering.
²     Like a short-lived bloom,
        he springs up only to wither;
        like the brief shade gained by a fast-moving cloud,
        he passes swiftly.
³     Lord, is this why You turn Your gaze on such a creature:
        to bring me,^[a] a mere human being, alongside You for judgment?
⁴     Who can take what is impure and defiled
        to fashion something pure and pristine?
        No one! We are, after all, so different in nature.
⁵     Since a person’s life is fixed,
        and You are the One who determines the number of his months,
    And You set a limit on the length of her life,
        and since they are incapable of exceeding Your decree,
⁶     The least You can do is turn Your gaze away from him until they pass,
        so that he can enjoy his day like a hired worker.

⁷     You know, at least there is a kind of hope for a tree:
        if it gets cut down, it may yet sprout again out of the roots.
        And very likely then, its tender shoots will not die.
⁸     Its roots may age deep under the ground,
        and the stump appear dead in the dry earth,
⁹     But even then it needs only the merest whiff of water
        to bud again and put forth shoots like a newly planted sapling.
¹⁰     But not so with humankind.
        The noblest of human beings dies and lies flat.
    Humans die, and where do they go?
¹¹         Just as water evaporates from the sea,
    And riverbeds go parched and dry,
¹²         so humankind lies down and does not rise again.
    Until the day when the skies are done away with,
        humankind will neither awaken nor rouse from slumber.

¹³     O that You would merely hide me in the land of the dead
        and keep me in secret till Your wrath is gone,
        until a time You decide when You might think upon me.
¹⁴     If one dies, can he live again?
        Through these days of toil and struggle,
        I will patiently wait until my situation changes.

3 Afflicted, I have seen and know what it’s like
    to feel the rod of God’s anger:
² An absence of light and only darkness.
    Darkness—that’s where God has driven me.
³ Against me and me alone, over and over,
    God raises His hand incessantly.

⁴ Bones are broken, skin rubbed off, and my flesh wasted;
    this is God’s doing:
⁵ Besieged in hardship,
    wrapped in a husk of bitter poison and trouble;
⁶ Brought to darkness like those dead and decaying,
    and left there alone to live.

⁷ Cut off from every avenue of escape, God has fenced me in
    and tied me up with heavy chains.
⁸ Crying and carrying on do me no good;
    God shuts out my prayer.
⁹ Closed in and blocked by walls of cut stone,
    what paths I have left, He has twisted and confused my steps.

¹⁹ Grievous thoughts of affliction and wandering plagued my mind—
    great bitterness and gall.
²⁰ Grieving, my soul thinks back;
    these thoughts cripple, and I sink down.
²¹ Gaining hope,
    I remember and wait for this thought:

²² How enduring is God’s loyal love;
    the Eternal has inexhaustible compassion.
²³ Here they are, every morning, new!
    Your faithfulness, God, is as broad as the day.
²⁴ Have courage, for the Eternal is all that I will need.
    My soul boasts, “Hope in God; just wait.”

³ You are my rock and my fortress—my soul’s sanctuary!
    Therefore, for the sake of Your reputation, be my leader, my guide, my navigator, my commander.
⁴ Save me from the snare that has been secretly set out for me,
    for You are my protection.