¹My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are mine. ²Are there not mockers around me? and doth not mine eye abide in their provocation? ³Lay down now a pledge, be thou surety for me with thyself: who is he that striketh hands with me? ⁴For thou hast hidden their heart from understanding; therefore thou wilt not exalt them. ⁵He that betrayeth friends for a prey—even the eyes of his children shall fail. ⁶And he hath made me a proverb of the peoples; and I am become one to be spit on in the face. ⁷And mine eye is dim by reason of grief, and all my members are as a shadow. ⁸Upright men shall be astonished at this, and the innocent shall be stirred up against the ungodly; ⁹But the righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall increase in strength.

¹⁰But as for you all, pray come on again; and I shall not find one wise man among you. ¹¹My days are past, my purposes are broken off, the cherished thoughts of my heart. ¹²They change the night into day; the light they imagine near in presence of the darkness. ¹³If I wait, Sheol is my house; I spread my bed in the darkness: ¹⁴I cry to the grave, Thou art my father! to the worm, My mother, and my sister! ¹⁵And where is then my hope? yea, my hope, who shall see it? ¹⁶It shall go down to the bars of Sheol, when our rest shall be together in the dust.

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