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¹⁸ ‘O earth, do not cover my blood;
   let my outcry find no resting-place.
¹⁹ Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven,
   and he that vouches for me is on high.
²⁰ My friends scorn me;
   my eye pours out tears to God,
²¹ that he would maintain the right of a mortal with God,
   as^* one does for a neighbour.
²² For 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.
² Surely there are mockers around me,
   and my eye dwells on their provocation.

³ ‘Lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
   who is there that will give surety for me?
⁴ Since you have closed their minds to understanding,
   therefore you will not let them triumph.
⁵ Those who denounce friends for reward—
   the eyes of their children will fail.

⁶ ‘He has made me a byword of the peoples,
   and I am one before whom people spit.
⁷ My eye has grown dim from grief,
   and all my members are like a shadow.
⁸ The upright are appalled at this,
   and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless.
⁹ Yet the righteous hold to their way,
   and they that have clean hands grow stronger and stronger.
¹⁰ But you, come back now, all of you,
   and I shall not find a sensible person among you.
¹¹ My days are past, my plans are broken off,
   the desires of my heart.
¹² They make night into day;
   “The light”, they say, “is near to the darkness.”^*
13 If I look for Sheol as my house,
   if I spread my couch in darkness,
¹⁴ if I say to the Pit, “You are my father”,
   and to the worm, “My mother”, or “My sister”,
¹⁵ where then is my hope?
   Who will see my hope?
¹⁶ Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
   Shall we descend together into the dust?’