Read the Bible

² He springs up like a flower and withers away;
like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.

³ Do you fix your eye on such a one?
Will you bring him ^(F25) before you for judgment?

⁴ Who can bring what is pure from the impure?
No one!

⁵ Man's days are determined;
you have decreed the number of his months
and have set limits he cannot exceed.

⁶ So look away from him and let him alone,
till he has put in his time like a hired man.

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.

⁸ Its roots may grow old in the ground
and its stump die in the soil,

⁹ yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth shoots like a plant.

¹⁰ But man dies and is laid low;
he breathes his last and is no more.

¹¹ As water disappears from the sea
or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,

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.

¹³ "If only you would hide me in the grave ^(F26)
and conceal me till your anger has passed!
If only you would set me a time
and then remember me!

¹⁴ If a man dies, will he live again?
All the days of my hard service
I will wait for my renewal to come.

¹⁵ You will call and I will answer you;
you will long for the creature your hands have made.

¹⁶ Surely then you will count my steps
but not keep track of my sin.

¹⁷ My offenses will be sealed up in a bag;
you will cover over my sin.

¹⁸ "But as a mountain erodes and crumbles
and as a rock is moved from its place,

¹⁹ as water wears away stones
and torrents wash away the soil,
so you destroy man's hope.

²⁰ You overpower him once for all, and he is gone;
you change his countenance and send him away.

²¹ If his sons are honored, he does not know it;
if they are brought low, he does not see it.

²² He feels but the pain of his own body
and mourns only for himself."