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III

10 Mortals are a mere breath,
    the sons of man but an illusion;(A)
On a balance they rise;[a]
    together they weigh nothing.

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Footnotes

  1. 62:10 On a balance they rise: precious objects were weighed by balancing two pans suspended from a beam. The lighter pan rises.

Our life ebbs away under your wrath;(A)
    our years end like a sigh.
10 Seventy is the sum of our years,
    or eighty, if we are strong;
Most of them are toil and sorrow;
    they pass quickly, and we are gone.

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[a]Man is but a breath,
    his days are like a passing shadow.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 144:4 Composed of phrases from Ps 39:6; 102:12.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle;
    they come to an end without hope.

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16 I waste away: I will not live forever;(A)
    let me alone, for my days are but a breath.

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Chapter 14

Man born of woman
    is short-lived and full of trouble,[a](A)

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Footnotes

  1. 14:1 The sorrowful lament of Job is that God should relent in view of the limited life of human beings. When compared to plant life, which dies but can revive, the death of human beings is final. Job’s wild and “unthinkable” wish in vv. 13–17 is a bold stroke of imagination and desire: if only in Sheol he were protected till God would remember him! Were he to live again (v. 14), things would be different, but alas, God destroys “the hope of mortals” (v. 19).

Since his days are determined—
    you know the number of his months;
    you have fixed the limit which he cannot pass—

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12 (A)For who knows what is good for mortals in life, the limited days of their vain life, spent like a shadow? Because who can tell them what will come afterward under the sun?(B)

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For our lifetime is the passing of a shadow;
    and our dying cannot be deferred
    because it is fixed with a seal; and no one returns.(A)

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