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Job – Chapter 17

Books of The Bible / Book of Job

1 My breathing is growing weaker and the gravediggers are gathering for me.

2 Scoffers are my only companions, their harshness haunts my nights.

3 So you must go bail for me to yourself, for which of them cares to clap his hand on mine?

4 For you have shut their hearts to reason, hence not a hand is lifted.

5 Just so is a man who invites his friends to share his property while the eyes of his own children languish.

6 I have become a byword among foreigners, and a creature on whose face to spit,

7 since I am nearly blind with grief and my limbs are reduced to a shadow.

8 Any honest person is appalled at the sight, the innocent is indignant at the sinner.

9 Anyone upright grows stronger step by step: and anyone whose hands are clean grows ever in vigour!

10 Come on then, all of you, back to the attack! I shall not find one wise man among you!

11 My days are over, so are my plans, my heart-strings are broken;

12 yet they would have me believe that night is day, that light to dispel the darkness is at hand,

13 when all I want, in fact, is to dwell in Sheol and in that darkness there to make my bed!

14 To the tomb, I cry, ‘You are my father!’ — to the worm, ‘You are my mother-you, my sister!’

15 Where then is my hope? Who can see any happiness for me?

16 unless they come down to Sheol with me, all of us sinking into the dust together?