Job 17

Job Continues: Where Then Is My Hope? [1] “My spirit is broken; my days are extinct; the graveyard is ready for me. [2] Surely there are mockers about me, and my eye dwells on their provocation. [3] “Lay down a pledge for me with you; who is there who will put up security for me? [4] Since you have closed their hearts to understanding, therefore you will not let them triumph. [5] He who informs against his friends to get a share of their property— the eyes of his children will fail. [6] “He has made me a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whom men spit. [7] My eye has grown dim from vexation, and all my members are like a shadow. [8] The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless. [9] Yet the righteous holds to his way, and he who has clean hands grows stronger and stronger. [10] But you, come on again, all of you, and I shall not find a wise man among you. [11] My days are past; my plans are broken off, the desires of my heart. [12] They make night into day: ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’ [13] If I hope for Sheol as my house, if I make my bed in darkness, [14] if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ [15] where then is my hope? Who will see my hope? [16] Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?” (ESV)