[1] “My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, The grave is ready for me.
[2] Surely mockers are with me, And my eye gazes on their provocation.
[3] Lay down, now, a pledge for me with Yourself; Who is there that will be my guarantor?
[4] For You have kept their heart from understanding, Therefore You will not exalt them.
[5] He who informs against friends for a share of the spoil, The eyes of his children also will languish.
[6] But He has made me a byword of the people, And I am one at whom men spit.
[7] My eye has also grown dim because of grief, And all my members are as a shadow.
[8] The upright will be appalled at this, And the innocent will stir up himself against the godless.
[9] Nevertheless the righteous will hold to his way, And he who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.
[10] But come again all of you now, For I do not find a wise man among you.
[11] My days are past, my plans are torn apart, Even the wishes of my heart.
[12] They make night into day, saying, ‘The light is near,’ in the presence of darkness.
[13] If I look for Sheol as my home, I make my bed in the darkness;
[14] If I call to the pit, ‘You are my father’; To the worm, ‘my mother and my sister’;
[15] Where now is my hope? And who regards my hope?
[16] Will it go down with me to Sheol? Shall we together go down into the dust?”