Job 17

Job Seeks Hope

1 “My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished;
The ^{▼▼Lit graves}grave is ready for me.
2 “Surely mockers are with me,
And my eye ^{▼▼Lit lodges}gazes on their provocation.
3 “Establish, now, a pledge for me with Yourself;
Who is there that will clap my hand in pledge?
4 “For You have hidden their heart from insight,
Therefore You will not exalt them.
5 “He who informs against friends for a share of the spoil,
The eyes of his children also will come to an end.
6 “But He has made me a byword of the people,
And I am ^{▼▼Lit a spitting to the faces}one at whom men spit.
7 “My eye has also grown dim because of grief,
And all my members are as a shadow.
8 “The upright will be appalled at this,
And the innocent will stir up himself against the godless.
9 “Nevertheless the righteous will hold to his way,
And he who has clean hands will grow mightier and mightier.
10 “But come again all of ^{▼▼As in some ancient mss and versions; M.T. them}you now,
For I do not find a wise man among you.
11 “My days 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 hope for Sheol as my home,
I ^{▼▼Lit spread out}make my bed in the darkness;
14 If I call to the pit, ‘You are my father’;
To the worm, ‘my mother and my sister’;
15 Where now is my hope?
And who beholds my hope?
16 “ ^{▼▼As in Gr; Heb possibly Let my limbs sink down to Sheol, since there is rest in the dust for all}Will it go down with me to Sheol?
Shall we together go down into the dust?”