Job Continues: Where Then Is My Hope?

¹“My spirit is broken; my days are jextinct;

kthe graveyard is ready for me.

²Surely there are mockers about me,

and my eye dwells on their lprovocation.

³“Lay down a pledge for me with you;

who is there who will put up msecurity for me?

⁴Since you have closed their hearts to understanding,

therefore you will not let them triumph.

⁵He who informs against his friends to get a share of their property—

the neyes of his children will fail.

⁶“He has made me oa byword of the peoples,

and I am one before whom men spit.

⁷My peye has grown dim from vexation,

and all my members are like qa shadow.

⁸The upright are rappalled at this,

and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless.

⁹Yet the righteous holds to his way,

and he who has sclean hands grows stronger and stronger.

¹⁰But you, tcome on again, all of you,

and I shall not find a wise man among you.

¹¹My udays are past; my plans are broken off,

the desires of my heart.

¹²They vmake night into day:

‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’1

¹³If I hope for wSheol as xmy house,

if I make my bed in darkness,

¹⁴if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’

and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’

¹⁵where then is my hope?

Who will see my hope?

¹⁶Will it go down to the bars of wSheol?

Shall we ydescend together zinto the dust?”2