Job 14:2

(For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow.)

For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch.

“I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you, that you are afraid of man who shall die, and of the son of man who will be made as grass?

He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper.

Behold, you have made my days hand widths. My lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely every man stands as a breath.”

The voice of one saying, “Cry!” One said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field.

For, “All flesh is like grass, and all of man’s glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls;

Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye will no more see good.

As for transgressors, they shall be destroyed together. The future of the wicked shall be cut off.

As for man, his days are like grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

The world is passing away with its lusts, but he who does God’s will remains forever.

Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

“I am a stranger and a foreigner living with you. Give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”

Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?

But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in God’s house. I trust in God’s loving kindness forever and ever.

He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and doesn’t come again.

You sweep them away as they sleep. In the morning they sprout like new grass.

In the morning it sprouts and springs up. By evening, it is withered and dry.

The days of our years are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty years; yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for it passes quickly, and we fly away.

My heart is blighted like grass, and withered, for I forget to eat my bread.

I am a stranger on the earth. Don’t hide your commandments from me.

Let them be as the grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up,

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman who fears Yahweh, she shall be praised.

For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he spends like a shadow? For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?

This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.

You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it. For you are dust, and you shall return to dust.”

Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and evil. They have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”

Yahweh sent an exceedingly strong west wind, which took up the locusts, and drove them into the Red Sea. There remained not one locust in all the borders of Egypt.

“ ‘The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me.

As valleys they are spread out, as gardens by the riverside, as aloes which Yahweh has planted, as cedar trees beside the waters.

For we are strangers before you, and foreigners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no remaining.

The tents of robbers prosper. Those who provoke God are secure, who carry their god in their hands.

yet he will perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’

Behold, I am toward God even as you are. I am also formed out of the clay.

“Hear my prayer, Yahweh, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.

In his days, the righteous shall flourish, and abundance of peace, until the moon is no more.

Yahweh’s trees are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon, which he has planted;

Therefore I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion: for who can bring him to see what will be after him?

All this I have seen in my days of vanity: there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who lives long in his evildoing.

Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity, for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun.

A fool also multiplies words. Man doesn’t know what will be; and that which will be after him, who can tell him?

Stop trusting in man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?

Instead of the thorn the cypress tree will come up; and instead of the brier the myrtle tree will come up. It will make a name for Yahweh, for an everlasting sign that will not be cut off.”

You are righteous, Yahweh, when I contend with you; yet I would like to reason the cause with you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are they all at ease who deal very treacherously?

For he will be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green, and will not be concerned in the year of drought. It won’t cease from yielding fruit.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won’t he much more clothe you, you of little faith?

and those who use the world, as not using it to the fullest. For the mode of this world passes away.

Charge those who are rich in this present world that they not be arrogant, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on the living God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy;

and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away.

Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither like the green herb.

My days are like a long shadow. I have withered like grass.

Man is like a breath. His days are like a shadow that passes away.

For he doesn’t know that which will be; for who can tell him how it will be?

For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.

Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.

How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!

Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.

though the wicked spring up as the grass, and all the evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever.

The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

I fade away like an evening shadow. I am shaken off like a locust.

But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he lengthen days like a shadow, because he doesn’t fear God.

My dwelling is removed, and is carried away from me like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up my life like a weaver. He will cut me off from the loom. From day even to night you will make an end of me.