1 “My spirit has been broken, my days have been extinguished, graves are for me.
2 Truly, mockeries are with me, and my eye rests on their insults!
3 Please lay down a pledge for me with Yourself. Who would strike hands with me?
4 For You have hidden their heart from understanding, therefore You do not exalt them.
5 He who denounces friends for a share, even the eyes of his children shall fail.
6 But He has made me a byword of the people, whereas in former times I was as a drum.
7 And from sorrow my eye has grown dim, and all my members are like shadows.
8 Upright ones are astonished at this, and the innocent stirs himself up against the defiled one.
9 And the righteous holds to his way, and he who has clean hands becomes stronger and stronger.
10 But please, come back again, all of you, for I do not find a wise one among you.
11 My days have passed by, my plans have been broken off – the desires of my heart.
12 They would turn night into day, saying that light is near, in the presence of darkness!
13 If I wait – the grave is my house, I shall make my bed in darkness,
14 I shall say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ – to the worm, ‘You are my mother and my sister.’
15 Where then is my expectancy? As for my expectancy, who would see it?
16 Would it sink down into the grave? Would we together go down into the dust?”