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,’ 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, or descend together into the dust?”⋮