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 [Septuagint, Vulgate and Syriac Hebrew me] 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 river bed 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 [Hebrew Sheol] 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 [Or release] 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 offences 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 honoured, 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.