Job 17:1–16

¹ “My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; the grave awaits me. ² Surely mockers surround me, and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion. ³ Give me, I pray, the pledge You demand. Who else will be my guarantor? ⁴ You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore You will not exalt them. ⁵ If a man denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children will fail. ⁶ He has made me a byword among the people, a man in whose face they spit. ⁷ My eyes have grown dim with grief, and my whole body is but a shadow. ⁸ The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent are stirred against the godless. ⁹ Yet a righteous one holds to his way, and the one with clean hands grows stronger. ¹⁰ But come back and try again, all of you. For I will not find a wise man among you. ¹¹ My days have passed; my plans are broken off— even the desires of my heart. ¹² They have turned night into day, making light seem near in the face of darkness. ¹³ If I look for Sheol as my home, if I spread out my bed in darkness, ¹⁴ and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ ¹⁵ where then is my hope? Who can see any hope for me? ¹⁶ Will it go down to the gates of Sheol? Will we go down together into the dust?”