Job 17

Job’s Fifth Speech, Continued

¹“My spirit is pulled down; my days are extinguished;

the graveyard is for me.

²Surely mockery is with me,[#Literally “If not”]

and my eye rests on their provocation.

³Please lay down a pledge for me with yourself;

who is he who will give security for my hand?

⁴Indeed, you have closed their mind from understanding;[#Or “For”]

therefore, you will not let them triumph.

⁵He denounces friends for reward,

so his children’s eyes will fail.

⁶“And he has made me a proverb for the peoples,[#Hebrew “of”]

and I am one before whom people spit.

⁷And my eye has grown dim from grief,

and the limbs of my body are all like a shadow.

⁸The upright are appalled at this,

and the innocent excites himself over the godless.

⁹But the righteous holds on to his way,[#Hebrew “And”]

and he who has clean hands increases in strength.

¹⁰But all of you must return—please come![#Literally “And but”; #Literally “all of them you must return”; #Literally “and please come,” or “come on!”]

But I shall not find a wise person among you.

¹¹“My days are past; my plans are broken down—

even the desires of my heart.

¹²They make night into day,

saying, ‘Light is near to darkness.’

¹³If I hope for Sheol as my house,

if I spread my couch in the darkness,

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

to the maggot, ‘You are my mother or my sister,’

¹⁵where then is my hope?[#Hebrew “and where”]

And who will see my hope?

¹⁶Will they go down to the bars of Sheol?

Or shall we descend together into the dust?”