Job 17

Job Prepares for Death

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

the grave awaits me.

²Surely mockers surround me,

and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion.

³Give me, I pray, the pledge You demand.

Who else will be my guarantor?

⁴You have closed their minds to understanding;

therefore You will not exalt them.

⁵If a man denounces his friends for a price,

the eyes of his children will fail.

⁶He has made me a byword among the people,

a man in whose face they spit.

⁷My eyes have grown dim with grief,

and my whole body is but a shadow.

⁸The upright are appalled at this,

and the innocent are stirred against the godless.1

⁹Yet a righteous one holds to his way,

and the one with clean hands grows stronger.

¹⁰But come back and try again, all of you.

For I will not find a wise man among you.

¹¹My days have passed; my plans are broken off—

even the desires of my heart.

¹²They have turned night into day,

making light seem near in the face of darkness.

¹³If I look for Sheol as my home,

if I spread out my bed in darkness,

¹⁴and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’

and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’

¹⁵where then is my hope?

Who can see any hope for me?

¹⁶Will it go down to the gates of Sheol?

Will we go down together into the dust?”