Job 14
1 All of us are born of women, have few days, and are full of turmoil.
2 Like a flower, we bloom, then wither, flee like a shadow, and don't last.
3 (Yes, you open your eyes on this one; you bring me into trial against you.)
4 Who can make pure from impure? Nobody.
5 If our days are fixed, the number of our months with you, you set a statute and we can't exceed it.
6 Look away from us that we may rest, until we are satisfied like a worker at day's end.
7 Indeed there is hope for a tree. If it's cut down and still sprouting and its shoots don't fail,
8 if its roots age in the ground and its stump dies in the dust,
9 at the scent of water, it will bud and produce sprouts like a plant.
10 But a human dies and lies there; a person expires, and where is he?
11 Water vanishes from the sea; a river dries up completely.
12 But a human lies down and doesn't rise until the heavens cease; they don't get up and awaken from sleep.
13 I wish you would hide me in the underworld, conceal me until your anger passes, set a time for me, and remember me.
14 If people die, will they live again? All the days of my service I would wait until my restoration took place.
15 You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for your handiwork.
16 Though you now number my steps, you would not keep a record of my sin.
17 My rebellion is sealed in a bag; you would cover my sin.
18 But an eroding mountain breaks up, and rock is displaced.
19 Water wears away boulders; floods carry away soil; you destroy a people's hope.
20 You overpower them relentlessly, and they die; you change their appearance and send them away.
21 Their children achieve honor, and they don't know it; their children become insignificant, and they don't see it.
22 They only feel the pain of their body, and they mourn for themselves.