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.⋮