Job 17

NEW AMERICAN BIBLE	KING JAMES BIBLE
1 My spirit is broken, my lamp of life extinguished; my burial is at hand.	1 My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.
2 I am indeed mocked, and, as their provocation mounts, my eyes grow dim.	2 Are there not mockers with me? and doth not mine eye continue in their provocation?
3 Grant me one to offer you a pledge on my behalf: who is there that will give surety for me?	3 Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with me?
4 You darken their minds to knowledge; therefore they do not understand.	4 For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: therefore shalt thou not exalt them.
5 My lot is described as evil,	5 He that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail.
6 and I am made a byword of the people; their object lesson I have become.	6 He hath made me also a byword of the people; and aforetime I was as a tabret.
7 My eye has grown blind with anguish, and all my frame is shrunken to a shadow.	7 Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow.
8 Upright men are astonished at this, and the innocent aroused against the wicked.	8 Upright men shall be astonied at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite.
9 Yet the righteous shall hold to his way, and he who has clean hands increase in strength.	9 The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.
10 But turn now, and come on again; for I shall not find a wise man among you!	10 But as for you all, do ye return, and come now: for I cannot find one wise man among you.
11 My days are passed away, my plans are at an end, the cherished purposes of my heart.	11 My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart.
12 Such men change the night into day; where there is darkness they talk of approaching light.	12 They change the night into day: the light is short because of darkness.
13 If I look for the nether world as my dwelling, if I spread my couch in the darkness,	13 If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.
14 If I must call corruption "my father," and the maggot "my mother" and "my sister,"	14 I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou are my mother, and my sister.
15 Where then is my hope, and my prosperity, who shall see?	15 And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
16 Will they descend with me into the nether world? Shall we go down together into the dust?	16 They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.