1
“My ruach is broken; my days are extinguished; graves are for me.
2
Surely mockers are with me, and my eye lodges in their rebellion.
3
Set it down, please; pledge Yourself for me with You. Who is he who shall strike my hand?
4
For You concealed their heart from understanding; therefore You shall not exalt them.
5
One who declares companions for a portion— the eyes of his sons shall be completed.
6
He has set me as a proverb of peoples, and I have become one spat upon before their faces.
7
My eye grows dim from grief, and all my members are like a shadow.
8
The upright are astonished at this, and the innocent stirs himself against the profane.
9
Yet the righteous holds to his Way, and the one pure of hands increases strength.
10
But all of you, return and come, please; I shall not find a wise one among you.
11
My days have crossed over; my plans are torn apart— the possessions of my heart.
12
They set night as day; light is near before the face of darkness.
13
If I wait, Sheol is my house; in darkness I spread my bed.
14
To corruption I call, ‘You are my father’; to the worm, ‘My mother and my sister.’
15
Where then is my hope? And my hope—who shall see it?
16
They descend to the bars of Sheol, when together there is rest upon the dust.”