Job Continues: Where Then Is My Hope?
“My spirit is broken; my days are aextinct;
bthe graveyard is ready for me.
2 Surely there are mockers about me,
and my eye dwells on their aprovocation.
3 “Lay down a pledge for me with you;
who is there who will put up asecurity for me?
4 Since you have closed their hearts to understanding,
therefore you will not let them triumph.
5 He who informs against his friends to get a share of their property—
the aeyes of his children will fail.
6 “He has made me aa byword of the peoples,
and I am one before whom men spit.
7 My aeye has grown dim from vexation,
and all my members are like ba shadow.
8 The upright are aappalled at this,
and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless.
9 Yet the righteous holds to his way,
and he who has aclean hands grows stronger and stronger.
10 But you, acome on again, all of you,
and I shall not find a wise man among you.
11 My adays are past; my plans are broken off,
the desires of my heart.
12 They amake night into day:
‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’
13 If I hope for aSheol as bmy house,
if I make my bed in darkness,
14 if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’
and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
15 where then is my hope?
Who will see my hope?
16 Will it go down to the bars of aSheol?
Shall we bdescend together cinto the dust?”