Job Prepares for Death

1“ My spirit is destroyed, my days are extinguished—

graves are for me.

2If not, mockers are with me,

and in their provocation my eye lodges.

3Place, please, my pledge with You;

who is he who will strike himself to my hand?

4For You have hidden their heart from understanding,

and upon thus You will not exalt them.

5He reports his friends for a portion,

and the eyes of his sons are consumed.

6And He has made me a byword among the peoples,

and a spitting in the face I have become.

7And my eye is dim from sorrow,

and my members are like a shadow, all of them.

8The upright are appalled at this,

and the innocent rouses himself against the godless.

9Yet the righteous shall hold to his way,

and the one clean of hands shall add strength.

10But all of them, you⁺ should return and come in, please!

And I shall not find a wise one among you⁺.

11My days have passed by, my plans are pulled out—

the possessions of my heart.

12They set the night into day:

‘Light is near in the face of darkness.’

13If I await Sheol as my house,

if in the darkness I spread out my bed,

14if to the Pit I call out, ‘You are My father,’

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

15where, then, is my hope?

And my hope, who can see it?

16Will it go down into the hands of Sheol,

if we may rest together upon the dust?”