17
1 My spirit is broken;
my days are extinguished;
graves await me.
2 Are there not mockers with me?
My eye dwells on their provocations.
3 Lay down a pledge, please;
be my guarantor with yourself.
Who will clasp hands with me?
4 For you have hidden their hearts from understanding;
therefore you will not exalt them.
5 Whoever informs against his friends for gain—the eyes of his sons will fail.
6 He has made me a byword among peoples;
I am one in whose face they spit.
7 My eye has grown dim with grief, and all my limbs are like a shadow.
8 The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent rouses himself against the godless.
9 Yet the righteous holds fast to his way, and the one with clean hands grows stronger and stronger.
10 But all of you, return and come, please;
I will not find a wise man among you.
11 My days have passed;
my plans are broken off, the cherished thoughts of my heart.
12 They turn night into day, saying, ‘Light is near,’ in the face of darkness.
13 If I look for Sheol as my house, if I spread my bed in darkness,
14 if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother and my sister,’
15 where then is my hope?
And my hope—who will see it?
16 They will go down to the bars of Sheol, when we rest together in the dust.”