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14:1  "How frail is humanity! How short is life, how full of trouble!
14:2  We blossom like a flower and then wither. Like a passing shadow, we quickly disappear.
14:3  Must you keep an eye on such a frail creature and demand an accounting from me?
14:4  Who can bring purity out of an impure person? No one!
14:5  You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer.
14:6  So leave us alone and let us rest! We are like hired hands, so let us finish our work in peace.
14:7  "Even a tree has more hope! If it is cut down, it will sprout again and grow new branches.
14:8  Though its roots have grown old in the earth and its stump decays,
14:9  at the scent of water it will bud and sprout again like a new seedling.
14:10  "But when people die, their strength is gone. They breathe their last, and then where are they?
14:11  As water evaporates from a lake and a river disappears in drought,
14:12  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.
14:13  "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!
14:14  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.
14:15  You would call and I would answer, and you would yearn for me, your handiwork.
14:16  For then you would guard my steps, instead of watching for my sins.
14:17  My sins would be sealed in a pouch, and you would cover my guilt.
14:18  "But instead, as mountains fall and crumble and as rocks fall from a cliff,
14:19  as water wears away the stones and floods wash away the soil, so you destroy people's hope.
14:20  You always overpower them, and they pass from the scene. You disfigure them in death and send them away.
14:21  They never know if their children grow up in honor or sink to insignificance.
14:22  They suffer painfully; their life is full of trouble."