[1] “My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, The grave is ready for me. [2] Surely there are mockers and mockery with me, And my eye gazes on their obstinacy and provocation. [3] “Give me a pledge (guarantee, promise) with Yourself [acknowledge my innocence before my death]; Who is there that will be my guarantor and give security for me? [4] But You [Lord] have closed their hearts to understanding, Therefore You will not exalt them [by giving a verdict against me]. [5] He who denounces and informs against his friends for a share of the spoil, The eyes of his children will also languish and fail. [6] “But He has made me a byword and mockery among the people, And I have become one in whose face people spit. [7] My eye has grown dim (unexpressive) because of grief, And all my [body’s] members are [wasted away] like a shadow. [8] The upright will be [astonished and] appalled at this, And the innocent will stir himself up against the godless and polluted. [9] Nevertheless the righteous will hold to his ways, And he who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger. [10] But as for all of you, come back again, Even though I do not find a wise man among you. [11] My days are past, my purposes and plans are frustrated and torn apart; The wishes of my heart [are broken]. [12] These [thoughts try to] make the night into the day; ‘The light is near,’ they say in the presence of darkness [but they pervert the truth]. [13] But if I look to Sheol (the nether world, the place of the dead) as my home, If I make my bed in the darkness, [14] If I call out to the pit (grave), ‘You are my father’; And to the worm [that feeds on decay], ‘You are my mother and my sister [because I will soon be closest to you],’ [15] Where now is my hope? And who regards or considers or is even concerned about my hope? [16] Will my hope go down with me to Sheol (the nether world, the place of the dead)? Shall we go down together in the dust?”
