1 “ My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, The grave is ready for me.

2 “ Surely mockers are with me, And my eye gazes on their provocation.

3 “ Lay down, now, a pledge for me with Yourself; Who is there that will be my guarantor?

4 “ For You have kept their heart from understanding, Therefore You will not exalt them.

5 “ He who informs against friends for a share of the spoil, The eyes of his children also will languish.

6 “ But He has made me a byword of the people, And I am one at whom men spit.

7 “ My eye has also grown dim because of grief, And all my members are as a shadow.

8 “ The upright will be appalled at this, And the innocent will stir up himself against the godless.

9 “ Nevertheless the righteous will hold to his way, And he who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.

10 “ But come again all of you now, For I do not find a wise man among you.

11 “ My days are past, my plans are torn apart, Even the wishes of my heart.

12 “ They make night into day, saying, ‘The light is near,’ in the presence of darkness.

13 “ If I look for Sheol as my home, I make my bed in the darkness;

14 I f I call to the pit, ‘You are my father’; To the worm, ‘my mother and my sister’;

15 W here now is my hope? And who regards my hope?

16 “ Will it go down with me to Sheol? Shall we together go down into the dust?”