Chapter 17

  My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are mine.  

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  Are there not mockers around me? and doth [not] mine eye abide in their provocation?  

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  Lay down now [a pledge], be thou surety for me with thyself: who is he that striketh hands with me?  

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  For thou hast hidden their heart from understanding; therefore thou wilt not exalt [them].  

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  He that betrayeth friends for a prey -- even the eyes of his children shall fail.  

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  And he hath made me a proverb of the peoples; and I am become one to be spit on in the face.  

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  And mine eye is dim by reason of grief, and all my members are as a shadow.  

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  Upright men [shall be] astonished at this, and the innocent shall be stirred up against the ungodly;  

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  But the righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall increase in strength.  

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  But as for you all, pray come on again; and I shall not find one wise man among you.  

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  My days are past, my purposes are broken off, the cherished thoughts of my heart.  

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  They change the night into day; the light [they imagine] near in presence of the darkness.  

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  If I wait, Sheol is my house; I spread my bed in the darkness:  

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  I cry to the grave, Thou art my father! to the worm, My mother, and my sister!  

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  And where is then my hope? yea, my hope, who shall see it?  

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  It shall go down to the bars of Sheol, when [our] rest shall be together in the dust.  

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