< 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 my eye dwells upon 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 have hid their heart from understanding. Therefore thou shall not exalt them.
5 He who denounces his friends for a prey, even the eyes of his sons shall fail.
6 But he has made me a byword of the people, and they spit in my face.
7 My eye also is dim because of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow.
8 Upright men shall be astonished at this, and the innocent shall stir himself up against the profane.
9 Yet the righteous shall hold on his way. And he who has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger.
10 But as for you all, come on now again, and I shall not find a wise man among you.
11 My days are past. My purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart.
12 They change the night into day. The light, they say, is near to the darkness.
13 If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness, (Sheol )
14 if I have said to corruption, Thou are my father, to the worm, 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. (Sheol )
