2.1 KiB
Chapter 14
- "How frail is humanity!
How short is life, how full of trouble!
- We blossom like a flower and then wither.
Like a passing shadow, we quickly disappear.
- Must you keep an eye on such a frail creature
and demand an accounting from me?
- Who can bring purity out of an impure person?
No one!
- You have decided the length of our lives.
You know how many months we will live,
and we are not given a minute longer.
- So leave us alone and let us rest!
We are like hired hands, so let us finish our work in peace.
- "Even a tree has more hope!
If it is cut down, it will sprout again
and grow new branches.
- Though its roots have grown old in the earth
and its stump decays,
- at the scent of water it will bud
and sprout again like a new seedling.
- "But when people die, their strength is gone.
They breathe their last, and then where are they?
- As water evaporates from a lake
and a river disappears in drought,
- people are laid to rest and do not rise again.
Until the heavens are no more, they will not wake up
nor be roused from their sleep.
- "I wish you would hide me in the grave
and forget me there until your anger has passed.
But mark your calendar to think of me again!
- Can the dead live again?
If so, this would give me hope through all my years of struggle,
and I would eagerly await the release of death.
- You would call and I would answer,
and you would yearn for me, your handiwork.
- For then you would guard my steps,
instead of watching for my sins.
- My sins would be sealed in a pouch,
and you would cover my guilt.
- "But instead, as mountains fall and crumble
and as rocks fall from a cliff,
- as water wears away the stones
and floods wash away the soil,
so you destroy people's hope.
- You always overpower them, and they pass from the scene.
You disfigure them in death and send them away.
- They never know if their children grow up in honor
or sink to insignificance.
- They suffer painfully;
their life is full of trouble."