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 Sheol1 as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,
¹⁴ if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and 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,2 or descend together into the dust?”