Job 17-18
Complete Jewish Bible
17 “My spirit is broken, my days are quenched,
I am marked for the grave.
2 Mockers are all around me;
my eye meets only their hostility.
3 Be my guarantor, yourself!
Who else will put up a pledge for me?
4 For you have shut their minds to common sense;
therefore you will not let them triumph.
5 Should people share with their friends
when their own children’s eyes are so sad?
6 “He has made me a byword among the peoples,
a creature in whose face they spit.
7 I am nearly blind with grief,
my limbs reduced to a shadow.
8 The upright are perplexed at this,
the innocent aroused against the hypocrites.
9 Yet the righteous hold on to their way,
and those with clean hands grow stronger and stronger.
10 “But as for you all, turn around! Come back! —
yet I won’t find a wise man among you.
11 My days are over, my plans cut off,
which I had cherished so;
12 but they [try to] turn [my] night into day,
[saying,] ‘Light is near!’ — in the face of darkness.
13 “If I hope for Sh’ol to be my house;
if I spread my couch in the dark;
14 if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’
and to worms, ‘You are my mother and sister,’
15 then where is my hope?
And that hope of mine, who will see it?
16 Only those who go down with me
to the bars of Sh’ol,
when we rest together in the dust.”
18 Bildad the Shuchi said,
2 “When will you put an end to words?
Think about it — then we’ll talk!
3 Why are we thought of as cattle,
stupid in your view?
4 You can tear yourself to pieces in your anger,
but the earth won’t be abandoned just for your sake;
not even a rock will be moved from its place.
5 “The light of the wicked will flicker and die,
not a spark from his fire will shine,
6 the light in his tent is darkened,
the lamp over him will be snuffed out.
7 His vigorous stride is shortened,
his own plans make him trip and fall.
8 For his own feet plunge him into a net,
he wanders into its meshes.
9 A trap grabs him by the heel,
a snare catches hold of him.
10 A noose is hidden for him in the ground;
pitfalls lie in his path.
11 Terrors overwhelm him on every side
and scatter about his feet.
12 “Trouble is hungry for him,
calamity ready for his fall;
13 disease eats away at his skin;
the first stages of death devour him gradually.
14 What he relied on will be torn from his tent,
and he will be marched before the king of terrors.
15 “What isn’t his at all will live in his tent;
sulfur will be scattered on his home.
16 His roots beneath him will dry up;
above him, his branch will wither.
17 Memory of him will fade from the land,
while abroad his name will be unknown.
18 He will be pushed from light into darkness
and driven out of the world.
19 “Without son or grandson among his people,
no one will remain in his dwellings.
20 Those who come after will be appalled at his fate,
just as those there before were struck with horror.
21 “This is how things are in the homes of the wicked,
and this is the place of those who don’t know God.”
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.
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