| 1 | My spirit is broken, my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me. |
| 2 | Surely there are mockers around me, and my eye dwells on their provocation. |
| 3 | “Lay down a pledge for me with yourself; who is there that will give surety for me? |
| 4 | Since you have closed their minds to understanding, therefore you will not let them triumph. |
| 5 | Those who denounce friends for reward — the eyes of their children will fail. |
| 6 | “He has made me a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whom people spit. |
| 7 | My eye has grown dim from grief, and all my members are like a shadow. |
| 8 | The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless. |
| 9 | Yet the righteous hold to their way, and they that have clean hands grow stronger and stronger. |
| 10 | But you, come back now, all of you, and I shall not find a sensible person among you. |
| 11 | My days are past, my plans are broken off, the desires of my heart. |
| 12 | They make night into day; ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’ |
| 13 | If I look for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in darkness, |
| 14 | if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ |
| 15 | where then is my hope? Who will see my hope? |
| 16 | Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?” |