New Living Translation NLT
New International Version NIV
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.
5
A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.
6 So leave us alone and let us rest! We are like hired hands, so let us finish our work in peace.
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So look away from him and let him alone, till he has put in his time like a hired laborer.
7 “Even a tree has more hope! If it is cut down, it will sprout again and grow new branches.
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“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 Though its roots have grown old in the earth and its stump decays,
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Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil,
9 at the scent of water it will bud and sprout again like a new seedling.
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yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.
10 “But when people die, their strength is gone. They breathe their last, and then where are they?
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But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.
11 As water evaporates from a lake and a river disappears in drought,
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As the water of a lake dries up or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,
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.
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so he lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, people will not awake or be roused from their sleep.
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!
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“If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time and then remember me!
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.
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If someone dies, will they live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come.
15 You would call and I would answer, and you would yearn for me, your handiwork.
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You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made.
16 For then you would guard my steps, instead of watching for my sins.
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Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sin.
17 My sins would be sealed in a pouch, and you would cover my guilt.
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My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin.
18 “But instead, as mountains fall and crumble and as rocks fall from a cliff,
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“But as a mountain erodes and crumbles and as a rock is moved from its place,
19 as water wears away the stones and floods wash away the soil, so you destroy people’s hope.
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as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy a person’s hope.
20 You always overpower them, and they pass from the scene. You disfigure them in death and send them away.
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You overpower them once for all, and they are gone; you change their countenance and send them away.
21 They never know if their children grow up in honor or sink to insignificance.
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If their children are honored, they do not know it; if their offspring are brought low, they do not see it.
22 They suffer painfully; their life is full of trouble.”
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They feel but the pain of their own bodies and mourn only for themselves.”
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by
Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.