Job Prays for Relief

17 “My spirit is broken,My days are extinguished,The grave is ready for me.² Are not mockers with me?And does not my eye dwell on their provocation?

³ “Now put down a pledge for me with Yourself.Who is he who will shake hands with me?⁴ For You have hidden their heart from understanding;Therefore You will not exalt them.⁵ He who speaks flattery to his friends,Even the eyes of his children will fail.

⁶ “But He has made me a byword of the people,And I have become one in whose face men spit.⁷ My eye has also grown dim because of sorrow,And all my members are like shadows.⁸ Upright men are astonished at this,And the innocent stirs himself up against the hypocrite.⁹ Yet the righteous will hold to his way,And he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger.

¹⁰ “But please, come back again, all of you,^[a]For I shall not find one wise man among you.¹¹ My days are past,My purposes are broken off,Even the thoughts of my heart.¹² They change the night into day;‘The light is near,’ they say, in the face of darkness.¹³ If I wait for the grave as my house,If I make my bed in the darkness,¹⁴ If I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’And to the worm, ‘You are my mother and my sister,’¹⁵ Where then is my hope?As for my hope, who can see it?¹⁶ Will they go down to the gates of Sheol?Shall we have rest together in the dust?”