My spirit is consumed, my days are extinct,
The grave is ready for me.
Surely there are {Hebrew: mockery.}mockers with me,
And mine eye dwelleth upon their provocation.
Give now a pledge, be surety for me with thyself;
Who is there that will strike hands with me?
For thou hast hid their heart from understanding:
Therefore shalt thou not exalt them.
He that denounceth his friends for a {Hebrew: portion.}prey,
Even the eyes of his children shall fail.
But he hath made me a byword of the people;
And they spit in my face.
Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow,
And all my members are as a shadow.
Upright men shall be astonished at this,
And the innocent shall stir up himself against the godless.
Yet shall the righteous hold on his way,
And he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger.
But as for you all, come on now again;
{Or, For I find not}And I shall not find a wise man among you.
My days are past, my purposes are broken off,
Even the {Hebrew: possessions.}thoughts of my heart.
They change the night into day:
The light, say they, is near {Or, because of}unto the darkness.
If I {Or, hope, Sheol is my house; I have spread…I have said…And where now is my hope?}look for Sheol as my house;
If I have spread my couch in the darkness;
If I have said to {Or, the pit}corruption, Thou art my father;
To the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister;
Where then is my hope?
And as for my hope, who shall see it?
It shall go down to the bars of Sheol,
When once there is rest in the dust.
Querverweise zu Hiob 17,6 Hiob 17,6
And now I am become their song,Yea, I am a byword unto them.
Wherefore didst thou flee secretly, and {Hebrew: didst steal me.}steal away from me, and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away with mirth and with songs, with tabret and with harp;
then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
And the harp and the lute, the tabret and the pipe, and wine, are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of Jehovah, neither have they considered the operation of his hands.
Thou makest us a byword among the nations,A shaking of the head among the peoples.