VerseAI

NIV

Job 14

  1. 1<pb/><t>“Mortals, born of woman,</t> <t>are of few days and full of trouble.</t>
  2. 2<t>They spring up like flowers and wither away;</t> <t>like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.</t>
  3. 3<t>Do you fix your eye on them?</t> <t>Will you bring them<f>[20]</f> before you for judgment?</t>
  4. 4<t>Who can bring what is pure from the impure?</t> <t>No one!</t>
  5. 5<t>A person’s days are determined;</t> <t>you have decreed the number of his months</t> <t>and have set limits he cannot exceed.</t>
  6. 6<t>So look away from him and let him alone,</t> <t>till he has put in his time like a hired laborer. <pb/></t>
  7. 7<t>“At least there is hope for a tree:</t> <t>If it is cut down, it will sprout again,</t> <t>and its new shoots will not fail.</t>
  8. 8<t>Its roots may grow old in the ground</t> <t>and its stump die in the soil,</t>
  9. 9<t>yet at the scent of water it will bud</t> <t>and put forth shoots like a plant.</t>
  10. 10<t>But a man dies and is laid low;</t> <t>he breathes his last and is no more.</t>
  11. 11<t>As the water of a lake dries up</t> <t>or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,</t>
  12. 12<t>so he lies down and does not rise;</t> <t>till the heavens are no more, people will not awake</t> <t>or be roused from their sleep. <pb/></t>
  13. 13<t>“If only you would hide me in the grave</t> <t>and conceal me till your anger has passed!</t> <t>If only you would set me a time</t> <t>and then remember me!</t>
  14. 14<t>If someone dies, will they live again?</t> <t>All the days of my hard service</t> <t>I will wait for my renewal<f>[21]</f> to come.</t>
  15. 15<t>You will call and I will answer you;</t> <t>you will long for the creature your hands have made.</t>
  16. 16<t>Surely then you will count my steps</t> <t>but not keep track of my sin.</t>
  17. 17<t>My offenses will be sealed up in a bag;</t> <t>you will cover over my sin. <pb/></t>
  18. 18<t>“But as a mountain erodes and crumbles</t> <t>and as a rock is moved from its place,</t>
  19. 19<t>as water wears away stones</t> <t>and torrents wash away the soil,</t> <t>so you destroy a person’s hope.</t>
  20. 20<t>You overpower them once for all, and they are gone;</t> <t>you change their countenance and send them away.</t>
  21. 21<t>If their children are honored, they do not know it;</t> <t>if their offspring are brought low, they do not see it.</t>
  22. 22<t>They feel but the pain of their own bodies</t> <t>and mourn only for themselves.”</t>