Job

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Job’s Fifth Speech, Continued

17 
“My spirit is pulled down; my days are extinguished;

the graveyard is for me.

2 Surely[a] mockery is with me,

and my eye rests[b] on their provocation.

3 Please lay down a pledge for me with yourself;

who is he who will give security for my hand?[c]

4 Indeed,[d] you have closed their mind from understanding;

therefore, you will not let them triumph.

5 He denounces friends for reward,

so[e] his children’s eyes will fail.

6 “And he has made me a proverb for[f] the peoples,

and I am one before whom people spit.[g]

7 And my eye has grown dim from grief,

and the limbs of my body are all[h] like a shadow.

8 The upright are appalled at this,

and the innocent excites himself over the godless.

9 But[i] the righteous holds on to his way,

and he who has clean hands[j] increases in strength.

10 But[k] all of you must return[l]—please come![m]

But[n] I shall not find a wise person among you.

11 “My days are past; my plans are broken down—

even the desires of my heart.

12 They make night into day,

saying, ‘Light is near to darkness.’[o]

13 If I hope for Sheol as my house,

if I spread my couch in the darkness,

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

to the maggot, ‘You are my mother or[p] my sister,’

15 where[q] then is my hope?

And who will see my hope?[r]

16 Will they go down to the bars of Sheol?

Or shall we descend together into the dust?”

Footnotes

  1. Job 17:2 Literally “If not”
  2. Job 17:2 Literally “spends the night”
  3. Job 17:3 Or “who will give security for me?”
  4. Job 17:4 Or “For”
  5. Job 17:5 Hebrew “and”
  6. Job 17:6 Hebrew “of”
  7. Job 17:6 Literally “and spitting to the faces I am”
  8. Job 17:7 Hebrew “all of them”
  9. Job 17:9 Hebrew “And”
  10. Job 17:9 Literally “the clean of hands”
  11. Job 17:10 Literally “And but”
  12. Job 17:10 Literally “all of them you must return”
  13. Job 17:10 Literally “and please come,” or “come on!”
  14. Job 17:10 Hebrew “And”
  15. Job 17:12 Literally “near from the faces of darkness”
  16. Job 17:14 Or “and”
  17. Job 17:15 Hebrew “and where”
  18. Job 17:15 Literally “my hope who will see it”