International Standard Version
Job 14
1 Human beings born by women are short-lived a and full of trouble.
2 He springs up b like a flower and then withers. c Like a shadow, he disappears d and doesn’t last.
3 Indeed, have you opened your eyes on one like this— to bring me into a legal fight with you?
4 Who can produce a clean thing from an unclean thing? No one!
5 Since his days have been determined, the number of his months is known to you. You’ve set his limit and he cannot exceed it.
6 Look away from him and leave him alone, so he can enjoy his time, like a hired worker.”
7 “There is hope for the tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots won’t stop growing.
8 Even if its roots have grown ancient in the earth, and its stump begins to rot e in the ground,
9 the presence f of water will make it to bud so that it sprouts new branches like a young plant.
10 “But when a person g dies and wastes away, when a person h breathes his last, where will he be?
11 As water disappears from the sea, or water evaporates from a river,
12 so also a person i lies down and does not get up; they won’t awaken until the heavens are no more, nor will they arise from their sleep.”
13 “Won’t you keep me safe in the afterlife? j Conceal me until your anger subsides. Set an appointment for me, then remember me.
14 If a human being k dies, will he live again? I will endure the entire time of my assigned service, until I am changed. l
15 You’ll call and I’ll answer you; you’ll long for your creatures that your hands have made. m
16 Then you’ll certainly count every step I took, but you won’t keep an inventory of my sin.
17 My transgressions would be sealed up in a bag; you would cover over my sins.
18 “Mountains fall and crumble; rocks are dislodged from their places.
19 Water wears away stones; floods wash away topsoil from the land— but you destroy the hope of human beings just like that!
20 You overpower him once and for all, and then he departs; you change his appearance and then send him away.
21 “If his children are honored, he doesn’t know it; if they become insignificant, he never perceives it.
22 He feels only his own pain, n and grieves only for himself.”