¹⁶My face is red with weeping,
   and deep darkness is on my eyelids,
¹⁷though there is no violence in my hands,
   and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸‘O earth, do not cover my blood;
   let my outcry find no resting-place.
¹⁹Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven,
   and he that vouches for me is on high.
²⁰My friends scorn me;
   my eye pours out tears to God,
²¹that he would maintain the right of a mortal with God,
   as^* one does for a neighbour.
²²For when a few years have come,
   I shall go the way from which I shall not return.

Job Prays for Relief

17My spirit is broken, my days are extinct,
   the grave is ready for me.
¹³If I look for Sheol as my house,
   if I spread my couch in darkness,
¹⁴if I say to the Pit, “You are my father”,
   and to the worm, “My mother”, or “My sister”,
¹⁵where then is my hope?
   Who will see my hope?
¹⁶Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
   Shall we descend together into the dust?’