Study

14

“A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble,

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comes up like a flower and withers,

flees like a shadow and does not last.

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Do you fix your eyes on such a one?

Do you bring me into judgment with you?

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Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?

No one can.

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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,

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look away from them, and desist,

that they may enjoy, like laborers, their days.

 

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“For there is hope for a tree,

if it is cut down, that it will sprout again,

and that its shoots will not cease.

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Though its root grows old in the earth,

and its stump dies in the ground,

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yet at the scent of water it will bud

and put forth branches like a young plant.

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But mortals die, and are laid low;

humans expire, and where are they?

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As waters fail from a lake,

and a river wastes away and dries up,

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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.

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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!

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If mortals die, will they live again?

All the days of my service I would wait

until my release should come.

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You would call, and I would answer you;

you would long for the work of your hands.

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For then you would not number my steps,

you would not keep watch over my sin;

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my transgression would be sealed up in a bag,

and you would cover over my iniquity.

 

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“But the mountain falls and crumbles away,

and the rock is removed from its place;

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the waters wear away the stones;

the torrents wash away the soil of the earth;

so you destroy the hope of mortals.

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You prevail forever against them, and they pass away;

you change their countenance, and send them away.

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Their children come to honor, and they do not know it;

they are brought low, and it goes unnoticed.

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They feel only the pain of their own bodies,

and mourn only for themselves.”