Job 17

¹ My breath grows weak, and the gravediggers are gathering for me.

² I am the butt of mockers, and all my waking hours I brood on their spitefulness.

³ You yourself must take my own guarantee, since no one cares to clap his hand on mine.[*a]

⁴ For you have shut their hearts to reason, and not a hand is lifted.

⁵ Like a man who invites his friends to share his property while the eyes of his own sons languish,

⁶ I have become a byword among the people, and a creature on whose face to spit.

⁷ My eyes grow dim with grief, and my limbs wear away like a shadow.

⁸ At this, honest men are shocked,[*b] and the guiltless man rails against the godless;

⁹ just men grow more settled in their ways, those whose hands are clean add strength to strength.

¹⁰ Come, then, all of you: set on me once more! I shall not find a single sage among you.

¹¹ My days have passed, far otherwise than I had planned, and every fibre of my heart is broken.

¹² Night, they say, makes room for day, and light is near at hand to chase the darkness.

¹³ All I look forward to is dwelling in Sheol, and making my bed in the dark.

¹⁴ I tell the tomb, ‘You are my father’, and call the worm my mother and my sister.

¹⁵ Where then is my hope? Who can see any happiness for me?

¹⁶ Will these come down with me to Sheol, or sink with me into the dust?