Chapter 17

Job Says He Has Become a Byword

1 “My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished,

The 1agrave is ready for me.

2 “aSurely mockers are with me,

And my eye 1gazes on their provocation.

3 “Lay down, now, a pledge afor me with Yourself;

Who is there that will 1be my guarantor?

4 “For You have 1akept their heart from understanding,

Therefore You will not exalt them.

5 “He who ainforms against friends for a share of the spoil,

The beyes of his children also will languish.

6 “But He has made me a abyword of the people,

And I am 1one at whom men bspit.

7 “My eye has also grown adim because of grief,

And all my bmembers are as a shadow.

8 “The upright will be appalled at this,

And the ainnocent will stir up himself against the godless.

9 “Nevertheless athe righteous will hold to his way,

And bhe who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.

10 “But come again all of 1you now,

For I ado not find a wise man among you.

11 “My adays are past, my plans are torn apart,

Even the wishes of my heart.

12 “They make night into day, saying,

‘The light is near,’ in the presence of darkness.

13 “If I look for aSheol as my home,

I 1make my bed in the darkness;

14 If I call to the apit, ‘You are my father’;

To the bworm, ‘my mother and my sister’;

15 Where now is amy hope?

And who regards my hope?

16 “1Will it go down with me to Sheol?

Shall we together ago down into the dust?”