Job 14 - New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

14 “A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble,(A)
2 comes up like a flower and withers,
flees like a shadow and does not last.(B)
3 Do you fix your eyes on such a one?
Do you bring me into judgment with you?(C)
4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
No one can.(D)
5 Since their days are determined,
and the number of their months is known to you,
and you have appointed the bounds that they cannot pass,(E)
6 look away from them and desist,[a]
that they may enjoy, like laborers, their days.(F)

7 “For there is hope for a tree,
if it is cut down, that it will sprout again
and that its shoots will not cease.
8 Though its root grows old in the earth
and its stump dies in the ground,
9 yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth branches like a young plant.(G)
10 But mortals die and are laid low;
humans expire, and where are they?(H)
11 As waters fail from a lake
and a river wastes away and dries up,(I)
12 so mortals lie down and do not rise again;
until the heavens are no more, they will not awake
or be roused out of their sleep.(J)
13 O that you would hide me in Sheol,
that you would conceal me until your wrath is past,
that you would appoint me a set time and remember me!(K)
14 If mortals die, will they live again?
All the days of my service I would wait
until my release should come.(L)
15 You would call, and I would answer you;
you would long for the work of your hands.
16 For then you would not[b] number my steps;
you would not keep watch over my sin;(M)
17 my transgression would be sealed up in a bag,
and you would cover over my iniquity.(N)

18 “But the mountain falls and crumbles away,
and the rock is removed from its place;(O)
19 the waters wear away the stones;
the torrents wash away the soil of the earth;
so you destroy the hope of mortals.
20 You prevail forever against them, and they pass away;
you change their countenance and send them away.(P)
21 Their children come to honor, and they do not know it;
they are brought low, and it goes unnoticed.(Q)
22 They feel only the pain of their own bodies
and mourn only for themselves.”

Footnotes

  1. 14.6Cn: Heb that they may desist
  2. 14.16Syr: Heb lacks not

Cross references

  1. 14.1 : Job 5.7; Eccl 2.23
  2. 14.2 : Ps 90.5, 6; Jas 1.10; 1 Pet 1.24
  3. 14.3 : Ps 143.2; 144.3
  4. 14.4 : Ps 51.2, 10; Jn 3.6; Rom 5.12; Eph 2.3
  5. 14.5 : Job 21.21; Ps 139.16; Acts 17.26
  6. 14.6 : Job 7.1, 19
  7. 14.9 : Isa 55.10
  8. 14.10 : Job 13.19
  9. 14.11 : Isa 19.5
  10. 14.12 : Ps 102.26; Acts 3.21; Rev 20.11; 21.1
  11. 14.13 : Isa 26.20
  12. 14.14 : Job 7.1
  13. 14.16 : Job 10.6; 31.4; 34.21; Prov 5.21; Jer 32.19
  14. 14.17 : Deut 32.34; Hos 13.12
  15. 14.18 : Job 18.4
  16. 14.20 : Job 34.20; Jas 1.10
  17. 14.21 : Eccl 9.5; Isa 55.10