Job 14:1-22 VOICE

[1] Job: Humankind, born of woman, has a few brief years with much suffering. [2] Like a short-lived bloom, he springs up only to wither; like the brief shade gained by a fast-moving cloud, he passes swiftly. [3] Lord, is this why You turn Your gaze on such a creature: to bring me, a mere human being, alongside You for judgment? [4] Who can take what is impure and defiled to fashion something pure and pristine? No one! We are, after all, so different in nature. [5] Since a person's life is fixed, and You are the One who determines the number of his months, And You set a limit on the length of her life, and since they are incapable of exceeding Your decree, [6] The least You can do is turn Your gaze away from him until they pass, so that he can enjoy his day like a hired worker. [7] You know, at least there is a kind of hope for a tree: if it gets cut down, it may yet sprout again out of the roots. And very likely then, its tender shoots will not die. [8] Its roots may age deep under the ground, and the stump appear dead in the dry earth, [9] But even then it needs only the merest whiff of water to bud again and put forth shoots like a newly planted sapling. [10] But not so with humankind. The noblest of human beings dies and lies flat. Humans die, and where do they go? [11] Just as water evaporates from the sea, And riverbeds go parched and dry, [12] so humankind lies down and does not rise again. Until the day when the skies are done away with, humankind will neither awaken nor rouse from slumber. [13] O that You would merely hide me in the land of the dead and keep me in secret till Your wrath is gone, until a time You decide when You might think upon me. [14] If one dies, can he live again? Through these days of toil and struggle, I will patiently wait until my situation changes. [15] You will call out, and I will answer You then; and You will long for me, the work of Your hands, again. [16] For then You would still count each of my steps but not focus on my faults. [17] My sins would be sealed up as in a bag, and my crimes You would carefully cover up. [18] And yet while every crack in me is closely watched, the mountain will slide and erode as the avalanche steals its cliffs away. [19] The water grinds at the surface of stones, and the floodwater steals the soil away. This is how You wreck the hope of humankind. [20] You continually overwhelm him, and he dies; You alter his appearance and send him away. [21] If his children rise to honor, he does not know of it; if they sink to humiliation, he is unaware of it. [22] He knows only this: His body feels agony and his soul grieves.