Chapter 17
- 1
- My spirit is broken, my lamp of life extinguished; my burial is at hand.
- 2
- I am indeed mocked, and, as their provocation mounts, my eyes grow dim.
- 3
- 1 Grant me one to offer you a pledge on my behalf: who is there that will give surety for me?
- 4
- You darken their minds to knowledge; therefore they do not understand.
- 5
- My lot is described as evil,
- 6
- and I am made a byword of the people; their object lesson I have become.
- 7
- My eye has grown blind with anguish, and all my frame is shrunken to a shadow.
- 8
- Upright men are astonished at this, and the innocent aroused against the wicked.
- 9
- Yet the righteous shall hold to his way, and he who has clean hands increase in strength.
- 10
- But turn now, and come on again; for I shall not find a wise man among you!
- 11
- My days are passed away, my plans are at an end, the cherished purposes of my heart.
- 12
- Such men change the night into day; where there is darkness they talk of approaching light.
- 13
- If I look for the nether world as my dwelling, if I spread my couch in the darkness,
- 14
- If I must call corruption "my father," and the maggot "my mother" and "my sister,"
- 15
- Where then is my hope, and my prosperity, who shall see?
- 16
- Will they descend with me into the nether world? Shall we go down together into the dust?
Previous Chapter Next ChapterFootnotes
1 [3] Addressed to God; Job 17:10 to Job's friends.
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