Job 17

Job 17

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

²Surely 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?

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

⁵He 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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