Job 17

17The end of my life is near. I can hardly breathe;

there is nothing left for me but the grave.

²I watch how bitterly everyone mocks me.

³I am being honest, God. Accept my word.

There is no one else to support what I say.

⁴You have closed their minds to reason;

don’t let them triumph over me now.

⁵In the old proverb someone betrays his friends for money,

and his children suffer for it.ⁱ

⁶And now people use this proverb against me;

they come and spit in my face.

⁷My grief has almost made me blind;

my arms and legs are as thin as shadows.

⁸Those who claim to be honest are shocked,

and they all condemn me as godless.

⁹Those who claim to be respectable

are more and more convinced they are right.

¹⁰But if all of them came and stood before me,

I would not find even one of them wise.

¹¹My days have passed; my plans have failed;

my hope is gone.

¹²But my friends say night is daylight;

they say that light is near,

but I know I remain in darkness.

¹³My only hope is the world of the dead,

where I will lie down to sleep in the dark.

¹⁴I will call the grave my father,

and the worms that eat me

I will call my mother and my sisters.

¹⁵Where is there any hope for me?

Who sees any?

¹⁶Hope will not go with me^j

when I go down to the world of the dead.