Job 17

1 ‘I am very weak and I will soon die.

Then my friends will bury me in the ground.

2 All round me people say that I am a fool.

I have to stand and watch them.

3 God, you must help me.

There is nobody else who can help me.

4 Because of what you have done, my friends will not listen to me.

But I do not want them to think that they were right.

5 They have said very bad things about me.

They wanted people to think that they were clever.

Now I want you to make their children blind.

Do this, God, because of what they have said about me.

6 When people see me, they are not polite to me.

You, God, have caused them to be like this.

7 I have cried so much that I can hardly see.

I am so thin that I am like a shadow.

8 Honest people know that this is not fair.

They are angry because I seem to be so bad.

9 Honest people always know the right thing to do.

And people who only do good things get stronger.

10 But, my friends, come and try again to help me.

I will not find a wise man among you.

11 I will not live for many more days.

I will not be able to do the things that I wanted to do.

12 My friends say, “It is day”, when it is still night.

They say that it is nearly morning. But I know that it is still dark.

13 If I die I will go to a dark place.

There I will lie in the dark.

14 There I might speak to the grave where my body will lie.

And I might say to the grave, “You are my father.”

Or I might speak to the worms that I find there.

I might say to them, “Hello, my mother. Hello, my sister.”

15 I can hope for nothing that is better than that.

No one can find anything that is better for me.

16 When I die, I will go to my grave with nothing.

I will have lost everything that I had hoped for.’