Job 14:1-22 - Job Continues To Argue His Case With God

¹ Human beings born by women are short-lived and full of trouble. ² He springs up like a flower and then withers. Like a shadow, he disappears and doesn't last. ³ Indeed, have you opened your eyes on one like this to bring me into a legal fight with you? ⁴ Who can produce a clean thing from an unclean thing? No one! ⁵ Since his days have been determined, the number of his months is known to you. You've set his limit and he cannot exceed it. ⁶ Look away from him and leave him alone, so he can enjoy his time, like a hired worker."

⁷ "There is hope for the tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots won't stop growing. ⁸ Even if its roots have grown ancient in the earth, and its stump begins to rot in the ground, ⁹ the presence of water will make it to bud so that it sprouts new branches like a young plant. ¹⁰ "But when a person dies and wastes away, when a person breathes his last, where will he be? ¹¹ As water disappears from the sea, or water evaporates from a river, ¹² so also a person lies down and does not get up; they won't awaken until the heavens are no more, nor will they arise from their sleep."

¹³ "Won't you keep me safe in the afterlife? Conceal me until your anger subsides. Set an appointment for me, then remember me. ¹⁴ If a human being dies, will he live again? I will endure the entire time of my assigned service, until I am changed. ¹⁵ You'll call and I'll answer you; you'll long for your creatures that your hands have made. ¹⁶ Then you'll certainly count every step I took, but you won't keep an inventory of my sin. ¹⁷ My transgressions would be sealed up in a bag; you would cover over my sins.

¹⁸ "Mountains fall and crumble; rocks are dislodged from their places. ¹⁹ Water wears away stones; floods wash away topsoil from the land but you destroy the hope of human beings just like that! ²⁰ You overpower him once and for all, and then he departs; you change his appearance and then send him away. ²¹ "If his children are honored, he doesn't know it; if they become insignificant, he never perceives it. ²² He feels only his own pain, and grieves only for himself."