Job 17

¹My spirit is consumed, my days are extinct, the grave is readyfor me. ²Surely there are mockers with me, and mine eye abideth in their provocation. ³Give now a pledge, be surety for me with thyself; who is there that will strike hands with me? ⁴For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: therefore shalt thou not exalt them. ⁵He that denounceth his friends for a prey, even the eyes of his children shall fail. ⁶He hath made me also a byword of the people; and I am become an open abhorring. ⁷Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow. ⁸Upright men shall be astonied at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the godless. ⁹Yet shall the righteous hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger. ¹⁰But return ye, all of you, and come now: and I shall not find a wise man among you. ¹¹My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the droughts of my heart. ¹²They change the night into a day: the fight, say they, is near unto the darkness. ¹³If I look for Sheol as mine house; if I have spread my couch in the darkness; ¹⁴If I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou artmy mother, and my sister; ¹⁵Where then is my hope? and as for my hope, who shall see it? ¹⁶It shall go down to the bars of Sheol, when once there is rest in the dust.