Job, 17

1. My spirit is broken, my lamp of life extinguished; my burial is at hand.

2. I am indeed mocked, and, as their provocation mounts, my eyes grow dim.

3. Grant me one to offer you a pledge on my behalf: who is there that will give surety for me?

4. You darken their minds to knowledge; therefore they do not understand.

5. My lot is described as evil,

6. and I am made a byword of the people; their object lesson I have become.

7. My eye has grown blind with anguish, and all my frame is shrunken to a shadow.

8. Upright men are astonished at this, and the innocent aroused against the wicked.

9. Yet the righteous shall hold to his way, and he who has clean hands increase in strength.

10. But turn now, and come on again; for I shall not find a wise man among you!

11. My days are passed away, my plans are at an end, the cherished purposes of my heart.

12. Such men change the night into day; where there is darkness they talk of approaching light.

13. If I look for the nether world as my dwelling, if I spread my couch in the darkness,

14. If I must call corruption "my father," and the maggot "my mother" and "my sister,"

15. Where then is my hope, and my prosperity, who shall see?

16. Will they descend with me into the nether world? Shall we go down together into the dust?