Job 14

¹Man born of woman, living a short time, is replenished with many miseries.

²Who as a flower cometh forth and is destroyed, and flyeth as a shadow, and never abideth in the same state.

³And doest thou count it a worthy thing to open thine eyes upon such an one, and to bring him with thee into judgment?

⁴Who can make clean him that is conceived of unclean seed? Is it not thou which only art?

⁵The days of man are short, and the number of his months is with thee, thou hast appointed his limits which cannot be passed.

⁶Depart a little from him, that he may rest, until his day wished for come, even as the hired man's.

⁷A tree hath hope: if it be cut, it waxeth green again, and the boughs thereof spring.

⁸If his root be old in the earth, and the trunk thereof be dead in the dust,

⁹At the scent of water it shall spring, and bring forth leaves, as when it was first planted.

¹⁰But when man shall be dead, and naked, and consumed, where is he I pray?

¹¹As if the waters should depart out of the sea, and a river made empty should be dried up.

¹²So man when he is asleep shall not rise again, till heaven perish, he shall not awake, nor rise up out of his sleep.

¹³Who will grant me this, that in hell thou protect me, and hide me till thy fury pass, and appoint me a time, wherein thou wilt remember me?

¹⁴Shall man that is dead, thinkest thou, live again? All the days, in which I am now in warfare, I expect until my change do come.

¹⁵Thou shalt call me, and I shall answer thee: to the work of thy hands thou shalt reach thy right hand.

¹⁶Thou indeed hast numbered my steps: but thou wilt spare my sins.

¹⁷Thou hast sealed my offences as it were in a bag, but hast cured mine iniquity.

¹⁸A mountain falling slideth down, and a rock is removed out of his place.

¹⁹Waters make stones hollow, and with inundation the earth by little and little is consumed: and men therefore thou shalt destroy in like manner.

²⁰Thou hast strengthened him a little, that he might pass away for ever: thou shalt change his face, and shalt send him forth.

²¹Whether his children shall be noble, or unnoble, he shall not understand.

²²But yet his flesh whilst he shall live shall have sorrow, and his soul shall mourn upon himself.