Job Laments and Prepares for Death

1“My spirit is crushed,

my days are over;a

it’s the grave for me!

2Mockers surround me;

I cannot stop staring at their hostility all through the night.

3Offer, then, some collateral on my behalf.

Is there anyone who will be my guarantor?

4“Because you’re the one who closed their hearts to compassion;b

therefore, you won’t let them triumph.

5Now as for the one who testifies against his friends

to take their property,c

even the eyes of his children will fail.

6“He has made me a byword among people;

I’m being spit on in the face.

7My eyes have grown weak from grief;

and my whole body is as thin as a shadow.

8The upright are appalled over this,

and the innocent person is troubled by the godless.

9But the righteous person will hold to his way,

and those with clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.”

Job Prepares for Death

10“Come here now, all of you,

and I won’t find a wise person among you.

11My days are passed;

my plans have been shattered;

along with my heart’s desires.

12They have transformed night into day—

‘The light,’ they say, ‘is about to become dark.’

13“If my hope were that my house is the afterlifed itself,

if I were to make my bed in darkness,

14if I call out to the Pit,e ‘You’re my father!’

or say to the worm,f ‘My mother!’ or ‘My sister!’

15where would my hope be?

“And speaking of my hope, who would notice it?

16Will it go down to the bars that lock the doorsg of the afterlife?h

Will we descend together into the dust?”