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 a righteous one holds to his way, and the one with clean hands grows 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?”