1“My spirit has been broken, my days have been extinguished, graves are for me.

2Truly, mockeries are with me, and my eye rests on their insults!

3Please lay down a pledge for me with Yourself. Who would strike hands with me?

4For You have hidden their heart from understanding, therefore You do not exalt them.

5He who denounces friends for a share, even the eyes of his children shall fail.

6But He has made me a byword of the people, whereas in former times I was as a drum.

7And from sorrow my eye has grown dim, and all my members are like shadows.

8Upright ones are astonished at this, and the innocent stirs himself up against the defiled one.

9And the righteous holds to his way, and he who has clean hands becomes stronger and stronger.

10But please, come back again, all of you, for I do not find a wise one among you.

11My days have passed by, my plans have been broken off – the desires of my heart.

12They would turn night into day, saying that light is near, in the presence of darkness!

13If I wait – the grave is my house, I shall make my bed in darkness,

14I shall say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ – to the worm, ‘You are my mother and my sister.’

15Where then is my expectancy? As for my expectancy, who would see it?

16Would it sink down into the grave? Would we together go down into the dust?”