Job Chapter 14
1 “Mortals born of women
are short-lived and filled with turmoil.
2 They come out and wither like a flower;
they pass away like a shadow and don’t last.
3 You keep your eyes open at them
and bring them under your judgment.
4 Who can make unclean into clean?
Nobody!
5 Since their days are set,
you determine the number of their months
and set limits they can’t pass.
6 Turn your gaze away so they can relax
and finish their day in peace like a hired hand. Job 14: 1-6
7 “There’s hope for a tree when it’s cut down
that it will sprout again and grow new branches.
8 Though its roots grow old in the ground
and its stump dies in the dry soil,
9 at the scent of water it revives
and puts out new sprouts like a plant.
10 But people die and just lie there;
they expire; where are they?
11 As water evaporates from the sea
and a river dries up,
12 people lie down and don’t get up.
Until the sky ceases to be,
they don’t wake up.
Job 14:7-12
13 “Oh that you’d hide me in Sheol,
that you’d conceal me till your anger’s over,
that you’d set a limit on it for me and remember me!
14 Can the dead live again?
I’d have hope, then, all the days I struggle
till my release came.
15 You’d call and I’d answer;
you’d look forward to what I’d do,
16 because then you’d number my steps
instead of counting my sins.
17 You’d seal up my sin in a bag
and wrap up my iniquity.
Job 14:13-17
18 “Like a mountain crumbles and falls
and a rock slides from its place,
19 like water erodes stone
and its torrents wash away soil,
so you destroy people’s hope.
20 You overpower them and they pass away;
you disfigure them and send them off.
21 If their offspring achieve honor, they don’t know it;
if they’re insignificant, they’re not aware of it.
22 They feel only the pains in their own body
and mourn only for themselves.”
Job 14:18-22