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Job 17 - 18

Job Seeks Hope

“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
“Establish, now, a pledge for me with Yourself;
Who is there that will clap my hand in pledge?
4
For You have hidden their heart from insight,
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 come to an end.

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 mightier and mightier.
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 hope 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 beholds my hope?
16
Will it go down with me to Sheol?
Shall we together go down into the dust?”

Bildad Speaks of the Downfall of the Wicked

Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said,
2
“How long until you put an end to your words?
Show understanding and then we can talk.
3
Why are we regarded as beasts,
As dense in your eyes?
4
O you who tear yourself in your anger—
For your sake is the earth to be forsaken,
Or the rock to be moved from its place?

5
“Indeed, the light of the wicked goes out,
And the flame of his fire gives no light.
6
The light in his tent is darkened,
And his lamp goes out above him.
7
His vigorous stride is shortened,
And his own counsel brings him down.
8
For he is thrown into the net by his own feet,
And he steps on the netting.
9
A snare seizes him by the heel,
And a device snaps shut on him.
10
A rope for him is hidden in the ground,
And a trap for him on the path.
11
All around terrors frighten him,
And harass him at every step.
12
His vigor is famished,
And disaster is ready at his side.
13
The firstborn of death eats parts of his skin;
It eats parts of him.
14
He is torn from the security of his tent,
And they march him in step before the king of terrors.
15
There dwells in his tent nothing of his;
Brimstone is scattered on his abode.
16
His roots are dried below,
And his branch is cut off above.
17
Memory of him perishes from the earth,
And he has no name abroad.
18
He is driven from light into darkness,
And chased from the inhabited world.
19
He has neither offspring nor posterity among his people,
Nor any survivor where he sojourned.
20
Those in the west are appalled at his fate,
And those in the east are seized with horror.
21
Surely such are the dwellings of the unjust,
And this is the place of him who does not know God.”