1 “My spirit is pulled down; my days are extinguished; the graveyard is for me.
2 ⌞Surely⌟ mockery is with me, and my eye ⌞rests⌟ on their provocation.
3 Please lay down a pledge for me with yourself; who is he who will give security for my hand?
4 Indeed, you have closed their mind from understanding; therefore, you will not let them triumph.
5 He denounces friends for reward, so his children’s eyes will fail.
6 “And he has made me a proverb for the peoples, ⌞and I am one before whom people spit⌟.
7 And my eye has grown dim from grief, and the limbs of my body are all like a shadow.
8 The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent excites himself over the godless.
9 But the righteous holds on to his way, and ⌞he who has clean hands⌟ increases in strength.
10 But ⌞all of you must return⌟—⌞please come⌟! But I shall not find a wise person among you.
11 “My days are past; my plans are broken down— even the desires of my heart.
12 They make night into day, saying, ‘Light is ⌞near to darkness⌟.’
13 If I hope for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in the darkness,
14 if I call to the pit, ‘You are my father,’ to the maggot, ‘You are my mother or my sister,’
15 where then is my hope? And ⌞who will see my hope⌟?
16 Will they go down to the bars of Sheol? Or shall we descend together into the dust?”