14:1	"Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.
14:2	He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
14:3	Do you fix your eye on such a one? Will you bring him before you for judgment?
14:4	Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!
14:5	Man's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.
14:6	So look away from him and let him alone, till he has put in his time like a hired man.
14:7	"At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.
14:8	Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil,
14:9	yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.
14:10	But man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.
14:11	As water disappears from the sea or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,
14:12	so man lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, men will not awake or be roused from their sleep.
14:13	"If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time and then remember me!
14:14	If a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come.
14:15	You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made.
14:16	Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sin.
14:17	My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin.
14:18	"But as a mountain erodes and crumbles and as a rock is moved from its place,
14:19	as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy man's hope.
14:20	You overpower him once for all, and he is gone; you change his countenance and send him away.
14:21	If his sons are honored, he does not know it; if they are brought low, he does not see it.
14:22	He feels but the pain of his own body and mourns only for himself."
	Table of Contents