Job Prepares for Death

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

the grave awaits me.

² Surely mockers surround me,

and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion.

³ Give me, I pray, the pledge You demand.

Who else will be my guarantor?

⁴ You have closed their minds to understanding;

therefore You will not exalt them.

⁵ If a man denounces his friends for a price,

the eyes of his children will fail.

⁶ He has made me a byword among the people,

a man in whose face they spit.

⁷ My eyes have grown dim with grief,

and my whole body is but a shadow.^*

⁸ The upright are appalled at this,

and the innocent are stirred against the godless.

⁹ Yet a righteous one holds to his way,

and the one with clean hands grows stronger.

¹⁰ But come back and try again, all of you.

For I will not find a wise man among you.

¹¹ My days have passed; my plans are broken off^* —^*

even the desires of my heart.

¹² They have turned night into day,

making light seem near in the face of darkness.

¹³ If I look for Sheol as my home,

if I spread out my bed in darkness,

¹⁴ and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’

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

¹⁵ where then is my hope?

Who can see any hope for me?

¹⁶ Will it go down to the gates^* of Sheol?

Will we go down together into the dust?”