Job 17
1 My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves [are ready] for me.
My spirit is crushed; my life is extinguished; the grave is ready for me.
2 [Are there] not mockers with me? and doth not mine eye continue in their provocation?
Mockers surround me. I see how bitterly they ridicule me.
3 Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee; who [is] he [that] will strike hands with me?
God, you need to put down a pledge for me with yourself, for who else will be my guarantor?
4 For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: therefore shalt thou not exalt [them].
You have closed their minds to understanding, so do not let them win!
5 He that speaketh flattery to [his] friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail.
They betray friends to gain benefit for themselves and their children suffer for it.
6 He hath made me also a byword of the people; and aforetime I was as a tabret.
He has made me a proverb of ridicule among the people; they spit in my face.
7 Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members [are] as a shadow.
My eyes are worn out from crying and my body is a shadow of its former self.
8 Upright [men] shall be astonied at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite.
People who think they are good are shocked to see me. Those who are innocent are troubled by the godless.
9 The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.
Those who are right keep going, and those whose hands are clean grow stronger and stronger.
10 But as for you all, do ye return, and come now: for I cannot find [one] wise [man] among you.
Why don't you come back and repeat again what you've been saying?—yet I still won't find a wise man among you!
11 My days are past, my purposes are broken off, [even] the thoughts of my heart.
My life is over. My plans are gone. My heart is broken.
12 They change the night into day: the light [is] short because of darkness.
They turn night into day, and say that daylight is close to darkness.
What am I looking for? To make my home in Sheol, to make my bed in darkness? (Sheol h7585)
14 I have said to corruption, Thou [art] my father: to the worm, [Thou art] my mother, and my sister.
Should I call the grave my father, and the maggot my mother or my sister?
15 And where [is] now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
So then where is my hope? Can anyone see any hope for me?
