Job Prays for Relief

17 “My spirit is broken, My days are extinguished,

aThe grave is ready for me.

2 Are not mockers with me?

And does not my eye 1dwell on their bprovocation?

3 “Now put down a pledge for me with Yourself.

Who is he who cwill shake hands with me?

4 For You have hidden their heart from dunderstanding;

Therefore You will not exalt them.

5 He who speaks flattery to his friends,

Even the eyes of his children will efail.

6 “But He has made me fa byword of the people,

And I have become one in whose face men spit.

7 gMy eye has also grown dim because of sorrow,

And all my members are like shadows.

8 Upright men are astonished at this,

And the innocent stirs himself up against the hypocrite.

9 Yet the righteous will hold to his hway,

And he who has iclean hands will be stronger and stronger.

10 “But please, jcome back again, 2all of you,

For I shall not find one wise man among you.

11 kMy days are past,

My purposes are broken off,

Even the 3thoughts of my heart.

12 They change the night into day;

‘The light is near,’ they say, in the face of darkness.

13 If I wait for the grave as my house,

If I make my bed in the darkness,

14 If I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’

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

15 Where then is my lhope?

As for my hope, who can see it?

16 Will they go down mto the gates of 4Sheol?

Shall we have nrest together in the dust?”