Job 17

1“My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, And the grave is ready for me. 2My eye dwells on their provocation. Surely there are mockers with me. 3Who is there who will strike hands with me? “Now give a pledge, be collateral for me with yourself. 4Therefore you shall not exalt them. For you have hidden their heart from understanding, 5Even the eyes of his children shall fail. He who denounces his friends for plunder, 6They spit in my face. “But he has made me a byword of the people. 7All my members are as a shadow. My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. 8The innocent shall stir up himself against the godless. Upright men shall be astonished at this. 9He who has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger. Yet shall the righteous hold on his way. 10I shall not find a wise man among you. But as for you all, come on now again; 11as are the thoughts of my heart. My days are past, my plans are broken off, 12saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness. They change the night into day, 13if I have spread my couch in the darkness, If I look for Sheol * as my house, 14to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘my sister;’ If I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father;’ 15as for my hope, who shall see it? where then is my hope? 16or descend together into the dust?” Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, *