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Job Prepares for Death

¹ My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; the grave awaits me.² Surely mockers surround me and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion.³ Give me, I pray, the pledge You demand. Who else will be my guarantor?⁴ You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore You will not exalt them.⁵ If a man denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children will fail.⁶ He has made me a byword among the people, a man in whose face they spit.⁷ My eyes have grown dim with grief, and my whole body is but a shadow.⁸ The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent are stirred against the godless.⁹ Yet the righteous will hold to his way, and the one with clean hands will grow stronger.

¹⁰ But come back and try again, all of you. For I will not find a wise man among you.¹¹ My days have passed; my plans are broken off—even the desires of my heart.¹² They have turned night into day, making light seem near in the face of darkness.¹³ If I look for Sheol as my home, if I spread out my bed in darkness,¹⁴ and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’¹⁵ where then is my hope? Who can see any hope for me?¹⁶ Will it go down to the gates of Sheol? Will we go down together into the dust?”