Job 8:8–19

⁸“Find out what your people who lived long ago taught.

Discover what those who lived before them learned.

⁹After all, we were born only yesterday.

So we don’t know anything.

Our days on this earth are like a shadow that disappears.

¹⁰Won’t your people of long ago teach you and tell you?

Won’t the things they said help you understand?

¹¹Can grass grow tall where there isn’t any swamp?

Can plants grow well where there isn’t any water?

¹²While they are still growing and haven’t been cut,

they dry up faster than grass does.

¹³The same thing happens to everyone who forgets God.

The hope of ungodly people dies out.

¹⁴What they trust in is very weak.

What they depend on is like a spider’s web.

¹⁵A person leans on it, but it falls apart.

He holds on to it, but it gives way.

¹⁶He is like a plant in the sunshine

that receives plenty of water.

It spreads its new growth all over the garden.

¹⁷It wraps its roots around a pile of rocks.

It tries to find places to grow among the stones.

¹⁸But when a plant is pulled up from its spot,

that place says, ‘I never saw you.’

¹⁹The life of that plant is sure to dry up.

But from the same soil other plants will grow.