Job 17

Job Says He Has Become a Proverb

¹“My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished,

The grave is ready for me.

²“Mockers are certainly with me,

And my eye gazes on their provocation.

³¶“Make a pledge for me with Yourself;

Who is there that will be my guarantor?

⁴“For You have kept their hearts away from understanding;[#17:4 Lit hidden]

Therefore You will not exalt them.

⁵“He who informs against friends for a share of the spoils,

The eyes of his children also will perish.

⁶¶“But He has made me a proverb among the people,

And I am one at whom people spit.

⁷“My eye has also become inexpressive because of grief,

And all my body parts are like a shadow.

⁸“The upright will be appalled at this,

And the innocent will stir himself up against the godless.

⁹“Nevertheless the righteous will hold to his way,

And the one who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.

¹⁰“But come again all of you now,[#17:10 As in some mss and ancient versions; MT them]

For I do not find a wise man among you.

¹¹“My days are past, my plans are torn apart,

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,[#17:13 I.e., the netherworld]

I make my bed in the darkness;

¹⁴If I call to the grave, ‘You are my father’;

To the maggot, ‘my mother and my sister’;

¹⁵Where then is my hope?

And who looks at my hope?

¹⁶“Will it go down with me to Sheol?[#17:16 As in LXX; Heb possibly Let my limbs sink down to Sheol, since there is rest in the dust for all.]

Shall we together go down into the dust?”