Job Continues: Death Comes Soon to All

¹“Man who is kborn of a woman

is lfew of days and mfull of trouble.

²He comes out like na flower and owithers;

he flees like pa shadow and continues not.

³And do you qopen your eyes on such a one

and rbring me into judgment with you?

⁴Who can bring sa clean thing out of an unclean?

There is not one.

⁵Since his tdays are determined,

and uthe number of his months is with you,

and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass,

⁶vlook away from him and leave him alone,1

that he may enjoy, like wa hired hand, his day.

⁷“For there is hope for a tree,

if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,

and that its shoots will not cease.

⁸Though its root grow old in the earth,

and xits stump die in the soil,

⁹yet at the scent of water it will bud

and put out ybranches like a young plant.

¹⁰But a man dies and is laid low;

man breathes his last, and zwhere is he?

¹¹aAs waters fail from a lake

and a river wastes away and dries up,

¹²so a man lies down and rises not again;

till bthe heavens are no more he will not awake

or be croused out of his sleep.

¹³Oh that you would dhide me in eSheol,

that you would dconceal me funtil your wrath be past,

that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!

¹⁴If a man dies, shall he live again?

All the days of my gservice I would hwait,

till my renewal2 should come.

¹⁵You would icall, and I would answer you;

you would long for the jwork of your hands.

¹⁶For then you would knumber my steps;

you would not keep lwatch over my sin;

¹⁷my transgression would be msealed up in a bag,

and you would cover over my iniquity.

¹⁸“But the mountain falls and ncrumbles away,

and othe rock is removed from its place;

¹⁹the waters wear away the stones;

the torrents wash away the soil of the earth;

so you destroy the hope of man.

²⁰You prevail forever against him, and he passes;

you change his countenance, and send him away.

²¹His sons come to honor, and he pdoes not know it;

they are brought low, and he perceives it not.

²²He feels only the pain of his own body,

and he mourns only for himself.”