17TH CHAPTER

Job Pleads with God to Declare Him Honest

1  “My spirit is broken. 

My days have been snuffed out. 

The cemetery ⸤is waiting⸥ for me. 

2  Certainly, mockers are around me. 

My eyes are focused on their opposition. 

3  Please guarantee my bail yourself. 

Who else will guarantee it with a handshake? 

4  You have closed their minds so that they cannot understand. 

That is why you will not honor them. 

5  (Whoever turns in friends to get their property 

should have his children’s eyesight fail.) 

Job Says to His Friends: I’m Still Wiser Than You

6  “Now he has made me a laughingstock for many people. 

Now they spit in my face. 

7  Now my eyes are blurred from grief. 

Now all my limbs are like a shadow. 

8  Decent people are shocked by this, 

and it stirs up the innocent against godless people. 

9  Yet, the righteous person clings to his way, 

and the one with clean hands grows stronger. 

10  “But now, all of you, come and try again! 

I won’t find one wise man among you. 

11  My days are passing by. 

My plans are broken. 

My dreams ⸤are shattered⸥. 

12  You say that night is day. 

Light has nearly become darkness. 

13  If I look for the grave as my home 

and make my bed in the darkness, 

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

and to the worm, ‘You are my mother and sister,’ 

15  then where is my hope? 

Can you see any hope left in me? 

16  Will hope go down with me to the gates of the grave? 

Will my hope rest with me in the dust?”