Book - Job - Chapter = 14 --> NLT
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"How frail is humanity! How short is life, and how full of trouble!
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Like a flower, we blossom for a moment and then wither. Like the shadow of a passing cloud, we quickly disappear.
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Must you keep an eye on such a frail creature and demand an accounting from me?
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Who can create purity in one born impure? No one!
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You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer.
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So give us a little rest, won't you? Turn away your angry stare. We are like hired hands, so let us finish the task you have given us.
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"If a tree is cut down, there is hope that it will sprout again and grow new branches.
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Though its roots have grown old in the earth and its stump decays,
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at the scent of water it may bud and sprout again like a new seedling.
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"But when people die, they lose all strength. They breathe their last, and then where are they?
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As water evaporates from a lake and as a river disappears in drought,
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people lie down and do not rise again. Until the heavens are no more, they will not wake up nor be roused from their sleep.
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"I wish you would hide me with the dead and forget me there until your anger has passed. But mark your calendar to think of me again!
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If mortals die, can they live again? This thought would give me hope, and through my struggle I would eagerly wait for release.
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You would call and I would answer, and you would yearn for me, your handiwork.
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For then you would count my steps, instead of watching for my sins.
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My sins would be sealed in a pouch, and you would cover over my iniquity.
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"But as mountains fall and crumble and as rocks fall from a cliff,
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as water wears away the stones and floods wash away the soil, so you destroy people's hope.
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You always overpower them, and then they pass from the scene. You disfigure them in death and send them away.
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They never know if their sons grow up in honor or sink to insignificance.
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They are absorbed in their own pain and grief."