Job

¹ is of few days and full of trouble.

² like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.

³ Will you bring him before you for judgment?

⁴ No one!

⁵ you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.

⁶ till he has put in his time like a hired man.

⁷ If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.

⁸ and its stump die in the soil,

⁹ and put forth shoots like a plant.

¹⁰ he breathes his last and is no more.

¹¹ or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,

¹² till the heavens are no more, men will not awake or be roused from their sleep.

¹³ and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time and then remember me!

¹⁴ All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come.

¹⁵ you will long for the creature your hands have made.

¹⁶ but not keep track of my sin.

¹⁷ you will cover over my sin.

¹⁸ and as a rock is moved from its place,

¹⁹ and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy man’s hope.

²⁰ you change his countenance and send him away.

²¹ if they are brought low, he does not see it.

²² and mourns only for himself.”