1 Job Seeks Hope “My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished;The 17:1 Lit graves grave isreadyfor me.
2 “Surely mockers are with me,And my eye 17:2Lit lodges gazes on their provocation.
3 ¶“Establish, now, a pledge for me with Yourself;Who is there that will clap my handin pledge?
4 “For You have hidden their heart from insight,Therefore You will not exaltthem.
5 “He who informs against friends for a shareof the spoil,The eyes of his children also will come to an end.
6 ¶“But He has made me a byword of the people,And I am 17:6Lit a spitting to the faces one at whom men spit.
7 “My eye has also grown dim because of grief,And all my members are as a shadow.
8 “The upright will be appalled at this,And the innocent will stir up himself against the godless.
9 “Nevertheless the righteous will hold to his way,And he who has clean hands will grow mightier and mightier.
10 “But come again all of 17:10 As in some ancient mss and versions; M.T. them you now,For I do not find a wise man among you.
11 “My days are past; my plans are torn apart,Eventhe wishes of my heart.
12 “They make night into day,saying,‘The light is near,’ in the presence of darkness.
13 “If I hope for Sheol as my home,I 17:13 Lit spread out make my bed in the darkness;
14 If I call to the pit, ‘You are my father’;To the worm, ‘my mother and my sister’;
15 Where now is my hope?And who beholds my hope?
16 “ 17:16 As in Gr; Heb possibly Let my limbs sink down to Sheol, since there is rest in the dust for all Will it go down with me to Sheol?Shall we together go down into the dust?”