Job 17

Job’s Fifth Speech, Continued

17“My spirit is pulled down; my days are extinguished;

the graveyard is for me.

²Surely^a mockery is with me,

and my eye rests^b on their provocation.

³Please lay down a pledge for me with yourself;

who is he who will give security for my hand?^c

⁴Indeed,^d you have closed their mind from understanding;

therefore, you will not let them triumph.

⁵He denounces friends for reward,

so^e his children’s eyes will fail.

⁶“And he has made me a proverb for^f the peoples,

and I am one before whom people spit.^g

⁷And my eye has grown dim from grief,

and the limbs of my body are all^h like a shadow.

⁸The upright are appalled at this,

and the innocent excites himself over the godless.

⁹Butⁱ the righteous holds on to his way,

and he who has clean hands^j increases in strength.

¹⁰But^k all of you must return^l—please come!^m

Butⁿ I shall not find a wise person among you.

¹¹“My days are past; my plans are broken down—

even the desires of my heart.

¹²They make night into day,

saying, ‘Light is near to darkness.’^o

¹³If I hope for Sheol as my house,

if I spread my couch in the darkness,

¹⁴if I call to the pit, ‘You are my father,’

to the maggot, ‘You are my mother or^p my sister,’

¹⁵where^q then is my hope?

And who will see my hope?^r

¹⁶Will they go down to the bars of Sheol?

Or shall we descend together into the dust?”