Add parallel Print Page Options

22 For when only a few years have elapsed,
    I’ll start down a path from which I’ll never return.”

Job Laments and Prepares for Death

17 “My spirit is crushed,
    my days are over;[a]
        it’s the grave for me!
Mockers surround me;
    I cannot stop staring at their hostility all through the night.
Offer, then, some collateral on my behalf.
    Is there anyone who will be my guarantor?

“Because you’re the one who closed their hearts to compassion;[b]
    therefore, you won’t let them triumph.
Now as for the one who testifies against his friends
    to take their property,[c]
        even the eyes of his children will fail.

“He has made me a byword among people;
    I’m being spit on in the face.
My eyes have grown weak from grief;
    and my whole body is as thin as a shadow.
The upright are appalled over this,
    and the innocent person is troubled by the godless.
But the righteous person will hold to his way,
    and those with clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.”

Footnotes

  1. Job 17:1 Lit. extinguished
  2. Job 17:4 Lit. understanding
  3. Job 17:5 Or inheritance

22 Indeed, after a few years[a] have come,
then[b] I will go the way from which I will not return.

Job’s Fifth Speech, Continued

17 “My spirit is pulled down; my days are extinguished;
the graveyard is for me.
Surely[c] mockery is with me,
and my eye rests[d] on their provocation.
Please lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
who is he who will give security for my hand?[e]
Indeed,[f] you have closed their mind from understanding;
therefore, you will not let them triumph.
He denounces friends for reward,
so[g] his children’s eyes will fail.
“And he has made me a proverb for[h] the peoples,
and I am one before whom people spit.[i]
And my eye has grown dim from grief,
and the limbs of my body are all[j] like a shadow.
The upright are appalled at this,
and the innocent excites himself over the godless.
But[k] the righteous holds on to his way,
and he who has clean hands[l] increases in strength.

Footnotes

  1. Job 16:22 Literally “years of number”
  2. Job 16:22 Hebrew “and”
  3. Job 17:2 Literally “If not”
  4. Job 17:2 Literally “spends the night”
  5. Job 17:3 Or “who will give security for me?”
  6. Job 17:4 Or “For”
  7. Job 17:5 Hebrew “and”
  8. Job 17:6 Hebrew “of”
  9. Job 17:6 Literally “and spitting to the faces I am”
  10. Job 17:7 Hebrew “all of them”
  11. Job 17:9 Hebrew “And”
  12. Job 17:9 Literally “the clean of hands”