Job 17

Job continues to speak

1 I am very weak and I will soon die.

Then my friends will bury me in my grave.

2 All around me, people are laughing at me.

I have to watch them as they insult me.

3 God, please help me to become free again.

Nobody else will pay the price to do that for me.

4 You have stopped my friends from thinking properly.

So do not allow them to win the argument.

5 People may turn against their friends

to get things for themselves.

If they do that, their children should become blind.

6 You have caused people to insult me,

like that proverb says.

People even spit at my face.

7 I have cried so much that my eyes have become weak.

My body is so thin that I am like a shadow.

8 Good people are upset,

when they see what is happening to me.

They are angry with those who turn away from you.

9 Righteous people continue to do things that are right.

People who do good things become stronger.

10 But you, my friends, come here!

Try again to help me, all of you!

I will not find a wise man among you.

11 I will not live for many more days.

I will never do the things that I wanted to do.

12 My friends say, “It is day”,

when it is still night.

They do not know the difference between light and dark.

13 The only home that I hope to go to is my grave.

I will lie down to sleep there in the dark.

14 I will say to the grave,

“You are my father.”

I will say to the worms that eat me,

“Hello, my mother. Hello, my sister.”

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

No one can find anything better for me.

16 When I go to the world of dead people,

all my hope will have finished.

Everything that I had hoped for will lie with me in the dust.’