Job 14:1-14

Complete Jewish Bible

14 “A human being, born from a woman,
lives a short, trouble-filled life.
² He comes up like a flower and withers away,
flees like a shadow, doesn’t last.
³ You fix your eyes on a creature like this?
You drag him to court with you?
⁴ Who can bring what is pure from something impure?
No one!
⁵ Since his days are fixed in advance,
the number of his months is known to you,
and you have fixed the limits which he can’t cross;
⁶ look away from him, and let him be;
so that, like a hired worker,
he can finish his day in peace.

⁷ “For a tree, there is hope
that if cut down, it will sprout again,
that its shoots will continue to grow.
⁸ Even if its roots grow old in the earth
and its stump dies in the ground,
⁹ yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth branches like a young plant.
¹⁰ But when a human being grows weak and dies,
he expires; and then where is he?
¹¹ Just as water in a lake disappears,
as a river shrinks and dries up;
¹² so a person lies down and doesn’t arise —
until the sky no longer exists;
it will not awaken,
it won’t be roused from its sleep.

¹³ “I wish you would hide me in Sh’ol,
conceal me until your anger has passed,
then fix a time and remember me!
¹⁴ If a man dies, will he live again?
I will wait all the days of my life
for my change to come.