Rhyming Job, Chapter 14

Rhyming Job, Chapter 14

“Of woman, born, both few and trouble-filled
are mortals’ days. They, upwards, spring for sure:
like flowers that will wither, quickly wilt;
like fleeting shadows that do not endure.
Do you, upon them, careful, fix your eye?
Will you, before you, bring, for judgment, them?
Who brings what’s pure from something unrefined?
No one! A person’s days, determinèd;

“the number of his months, you have decreed
and limits set that he cannot exceed.
So look away from him, please let him be,
till as a hired laborer will he
put in his time. A tree, at least, prevails:
if it’s cut down, again, it upwards sprouts
and its new shoots, not something that will fail.
Its roots grow old, their place is in the ground.
and in the soil is where its stump will die,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth shoots, a growing plant, it’s like.
A man dies, then, he’s laid low in the mud;
he breathes his last and he is no more, then.
As water in the lake dries up, it’s dry,
and parched, the riverbed becomes, no rain,
so he lies down and no more does he rise;
they won’t awake until the heavens cease,
the people never roused from death’s long sleep.

“If only you would hide me in the grave,
until your anger passes, me, conceal!
If only you, a time for me, you’d make,
a time when you would sure remember me!
If someone dies, will they yet live again?
My many days of service, hard, it’s true.
On my renewal, that, I will depend.
You will call out and I will answer you;
the creature your hands made, you’ll long for him.
For certain, then is when you’ll count my steps
and then no longer keep track of my sin.
Where, sealed up in a bag, all my offense,
a covering o’er all my sin you’ll spread.

“But as a mountain crumbles and erodes
and rock is moved away from out its place,
as water wears away the mighty stones,
the loamy soil, the torrents wash away,
so you destroy the hope a person has.
It’s once for all, how you o’erpower them,
and then, they’re gone; you change their countenance,
away you send them. They won’t know again
if honors, what their children will receive;
if they’re brought low, not something they will see.
All they will feel, the pain their bodies store,
and only for themselves, then, will they mourn.”