Job 17

¹ “My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, and the grave is ready for me.

² Surely 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?

⁴ For you have hidden their heart from understanding, Therefore you will not exalt them.

⁵ He 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.

⁷ My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow.

⁸ Upright men will be astonished at this. The innocent will stir himself up against the godless.

⁹ Yet the righteous will hold to his way. He who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.

¹⁰ But as for you all, come back. I will not find a wise man among you.

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

¹² They change the night into day, saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness.

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

¹⁴ if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father;’ to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘My sister,’

¹⁵ where then is my hope? as for my hope, who will see it?

¹⁶ Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?”