Job 17

¹My spirit is consumed, my days are extinct, The grave is `ready' for me.

²Surely there are mockers with me, And mine eye dwelleth upon their provocation.

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

⁴For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: Therefore shalt thou not exalt `them'.

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

⁶But he hath made me a byword of the people; And they spit in my face.

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

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

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

¹⁰But as for you all, come on now again; And I shall not find a wise man among you.

¹¹My days are past, my purposes are broken off, Even the thoughts of my heart.

¹²They change the night into day: The light, `say they', is near unto the darkness.

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

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

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

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