- 1“My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, And the grave is ready for me.
- 2Surely there are mockers with me. My eye dwells on their provocation.
- 3“Now give a pledge, be collateral for me with yourself. Who is there who will strike hands with me?
- 4For you have hidden their heart from understanding, Therefore you shall not exalt them.
- 5He who denounces his friends for plunder, Even the eyes of his children shall fail.
- 6“But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face.
- 7My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow.
- 8Upright men shall be astonished at this. The innocent shall stir up himself against the godless.
- 9Yet shall the righteous hold on his way. He who has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger.
- 10But as for you all, come on now again; I shall not find a wise man among you.
- 11My days are past, my plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart.
- 12They change the night into day, saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness.
- 13If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,
- 14If I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father;’ to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘my sister;’
- 15where then is my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
- 16Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?”