Job 17

NEW JERUSALEM	DOUAI-RHEIMS
1 My breathing is growing weaker and the gravediggers are gathering for me.	1 My spirit shall be wasted, my days shall be shortened, and only the grave remaineth for me.
2 Scoffers are my only companions, their harshness haunts my nights.	2 I have not sinned, and my eye abideth in bitterness.
3 So you must go bail for me to yourself, for which of them cares to clap his hand on mine?	3 Deliver me O Lord, and set me beside thee, and let any man's hand fight against me.
4 For you have shut their hearts to reason, hence not a hand is lifted.	4 Thou hast set their heart far from understanding, therefore they shall not be exalted.
5 Just so is a man who invites his friends to share his property while the eyes of his own childrenlanguish.	5 He promiseth a prey to his companions, and the eyes of his children shall fail.
6 I have become a byword among foreigners, and a creature on whose face to spit,	6 He hath made me as it were a byword of the people, and I am an example before them.
7 since I am nearly blind with grief and my limbs are reduced to a shadow.	7 My eye is dim through indignation, and my limbs are brought as it were to nothing.
8 Any honest person is appal ed at the sight, the innocent is indignant at the sinner.	8 The just shall be astonished at this, and the innocent shall be raised up against the hypocrite.
9 Anyone upright grows stronger step by step: and anyone whose hands are clean grows ever in vigour!	9 And the just man shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.
10 Come on then, al of you, back to the attack! I shall not find one wise man among you!	10 Wherefore be you all converted, and come, and I shall not find among you any wise man.
11 My days are over, so are my plans, my heart-strings are broken;	11 My days have passed away, my thoughts are dissipated, tormenting my heart.
12 yet they would have me believe that night is day, that light to dispel the darkness is at hand,	12 They have turned night into day, and after darkness I hope for light again.
13 when al I want, in fact, is to dwel in Sheol and in that darkness there to make my bed!	13 If I wait hell is my house, and I have made my bed in darkness.
14 To the tomb, I cry, 'You are my father!' -- to the worm, 'You are my mother-you, my sister!'	14 If I have said to rottenness: Thou art my father; to worms, my mother and my sister.
15 Where then is my hope? Who can see any happiness for me?	15 Where is now then my expectation, and who considereth my patience?
16 unless they come down to Sheol with me, all of us sinking into the dust together?	16 All that I have shall go down into the deepest pit: thinkest thou that there at least I shall have rest?