Job 17

¹ My spirit is broken, my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me.

² Surely there are mockers about me, and my eye dwells on their provocation.

³ "Lay down a pledge for me with thyself; who is there that will give surety for me?

⁴ Since thou hast closed their minds to understanding, therefore thou wilt not let them triumph.

⁵ He who informs against his friends to get a share of their property, the eyes of his children will fail.

⁶ "He has made me a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whom men spit.

⁷ My eye has grown dim from grief, and all my members are like a shadow.

⁸ Upright men are appalled at this, and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless.

⁹ Yet the righteous holds to his way, and he that has clean hands grows stronger and stronger.

¹⁰ But you, come on again, all of you, and I shall not find a wise man among you.

¹¹ My days are past, my plans are broken off, the desires of my heart.

¹² They make night into day; 'The light,' they say, 'is near to the darkness.'

¹³ If I look for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in darkness,

¹⁴ if I say to the pit, 'You are my father,' and to the worm, 'My mother,' or 'My sister,'

¹⁵ where then is my hope? Who will see my hope?

¹⁶ Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?"