Job 17

¹“My spirit is consumed.

My days are extinct

and the grave is ready for me.

²Surely there are mockers with me.

My eye dwells on their provocation.

³“Now give a pledge. Be collateral for me with yourself.

Who is there who will strike hands with me?

⁴For you have hidden their heart from understanding,

therefore you will not exalt them.

⁵He who denounces his friends for plunder,

even the eyes of his children will fail.

⁶“But he has made me a byword of the people.

They spit in my face.

⁷My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow.

All my members are as a shadow.

⁸Upright men will be astonished at this.

The innocent will stir himself up against the godless.

⁹Yet the righteous will hold to his way.

He who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.

¹⁰But as for you all, come back.

I will not find a wise man amongst you.

¹¹My days are past.

My plans are broken off,

as are the thoughts of my heart.

¹²They change the night into day,

saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness.

¹³If I look for Sheol as my house,

if I have spread my couch in the darkness,

¹⁴if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father,’

and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘My sister,’

¹⁵where then is my hope?

As for my hope, who will see it?

¹⁶Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol,

or descend together into the dust?”