Job 17

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

² Surely there are mockers with me, and mine eye abideth in their provocation.

³ Give now a pledge, be surety for me with thyself; who is there that will strike hands with me?

⁴ For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: therefore shalt thou not exalt them.

⁵ He that denounceth his friends for a prey, even the eyes of his children shall fail.

⁶ He hath made me also a byword of the people; and I am become an open abhorring.

⁷ Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow.

⁸ Upright men shall be astonied at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the godless.

⁹ Yet shall the righteous hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger.

¹⁰ But return ye, all of you, and come now: and I shall not find a wise man among you.

¹¹ My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the droughts of my heart.

¹² They change the night into a day: the fight, say they, is near unto the darkness.

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

¹⁴ If I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister;

¹⁵ Where then is my hope? and as for my hope, who shall see it?

¹⁶ It shall go down to the bars of Sheol, when once there is rest in the dust.