Job 17-18

Job 17

¹My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are mine.

²Are there not mockers around me? and doth not mine eye abide in their provocation?

³Lay down now a pledge, be thou surety for me with thyself: who is he that striketh hands with me?

⁴For thou hast hidden their heart from understanding; therefore thou wilt not exalt them.

⁵He that betrayeth friends for a prey -- even the eyes of his children shall fail.

⁶And he hath made me a proverb of the peoples; and I am become one to be spit on in the face.

⁷And mine eye is dim by reason of grief, and all my members are as a shadow.

⁸Upright men shall be astonished at this, and the innocent shall be stirred up against the ungodly;

⁹But the righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall increase in strength.

¹⁰But as for you all, pray come on again; and I shall not find one wise man among you.

¹¹My days are past, my purposes are broken off, the cherished thoughts of my heart.

¹²They change the night into day; the light they imagine near in presence of the darkness.

¹³If I wait, Sheol is my house; I spread my bed in the darkness:

¹⁴I cry to the grave, Thou art my father! to the worm, My mother, and my sister!

¹⁵And where is then my hope? yea, my hope, who shall see it?

¹⁶It shall go down to the bars of Sheol, when our rest shall be together in the dust.

Job 18

¹And Bildad the Shuhite answered and said,

²How long will ye hunt for words? Be intelligent, and then we will speak.

³Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed stupid in your sight?

⁴Thou that tearest thyself in thine anger, shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of its place?

⁵Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the flame of his fire shall not shine.

⁶The light shall become dark in his tent, and his lamp over him shall be put out.

⁷The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own counsel shall cast him down.

⁸For he is sent into the net by his own feet, and he walketh on the meshes;

⁹The gin taketh him by the heel, the snare layeth hold on him;

¹⁰A cord is hidden for him in the ground, and his trap in the way.

¹¹Terrors make him afraid on every side, and chase him at his footsteps.

¹²His strength is hunger-bitten, and calamity is ready at his side.

¹³The firstborn of death devoureth the members of his body; it will devour his members.

¹⁴His confidence shall be rooted out of his tent, and it shall lead him away to the king of terrors:

¹⁵They who are none of his shall dwell in his tent; brimstone shall be showered upon his habitation:

¹⁶His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off;

¹⁷His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name on the pasture-grounds.

¹⁸He is driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.

¹⁹He hath neither son nor grandson among his people, nor any remaining in the places of his sojourn.

²⁰They that come after shall be astonished at his day, as they that went before them were affrighted.

²¹Surely, such are the dwellings of the unrighteous man, and such the place of him that knoweth not God.