Job 17

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

¹My spirit is crushed; my life is extinguished; the grave is ready for me.

²Mockers surround me. I see how bitterly they ridicule me.

³God, you need to put down a pledge for me with yourself, for who else will be my guarantor?

⁴You have closed their minds to understanding, so do not let them win!

⁵They betray friends to gain benefit for themselves and their children suffer for it.

⁶He has made me a proverb of ridicule among the people; they spit in my face.

⁷My eyes are worn out from crying and my body is a shadow of its former self.

⁸People who think they are good are shocked to see me. Those who are innocent are troubled by the godless.

⁹Those who are right keep going, and those whose hands are clean grow stronger and stronger.

¹⁰Why don't you come back and repeat again what you've been saying?—yet I still won't find a wise man among you!

¹¹My life is over. My plans are gone. My heart is broken.

¹²They turn night into day, and say that daylight is close to darkness.

¹³What am I looking for? To make my home in Sheol, to make my bed in darkness?

¹⁴Should I call the grave my father, and the maggot my mother or my sister?

¹⁵So then where is my hope? Can anyone see any hope for me?

¹⁶Will hope go down with me to the gates of Sheol? Will we go down together into the dust?”