Job 17  Lexham English Bible

17 “My spirit is pulled down; my days are extinguished;
the graveyard is for me.
² Surely^[a] mockery is with me,
and my eye rests^[b] on their provocation.
³ Please lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
who is he who will give security for my hand?^[c]
4 Indeed,^[d] you have closed their mind from understanding;
therefore, you will not let them triumph.
⁵ He denounces friends for reward,
so^[e] his children’s eyes will fail.
⁶ “And he has made me a proverb for^[f] the peoples,
and I am one before whom people spit.^[g]
7 And my eye has grown dim from grief,
and the limbs of my body are all^[h] like a shadow.
⁸ The upright are appalled at this,
and the innocent excites himself over the godless.
⁹ But^[i] the righteous holds on to his way,
and he who has clean hands^[j] increases in strength.
¹⁰ But^[k] all of you must return^[l]—please come!^[m]
But^[n] 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.
¹² They make night into day,
saying, ‘Light is near to darkness.’^[o]
13 If I hope for Sheol as my house,
if I spread my couch in the darkness,
¹⁴ if I call to the pit, ‘You are my father,’
to the maggot, ‘You are my mother or^[p] my sister,’
¹⁵ where^[q] then is my hope?
And who will see my hope?^[r]
16 Will they go down to the bars of Sheol?
Or shall we descend together into the dust?”