Job 17

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;

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

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

¹⁵Where 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?”