Job Seeks Hope

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

The grave is ready for me.

²“Surely mockers are with me,

And my eye 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 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 you now,[#17:10 As in some ancient mss and versions; M.T. them]

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 make my bed in the darkness;

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

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

¹⁵Where now is my hope?

And who beholds my hope?

¹⁶“Will it go down with me to Sheol?[#17:16 As in Gr; 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?”