^17:1 My spirit is consumed, my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me. ^17:2 Surely there are mockers with me and my eye dwells upon their provocation.

    ^17:3 Give now a pledge, be a surety for me with yourself. Who is there that will thrust hands with me? ^17:4 For you have hid their heart from understanding. Therefore you will not exalt them.

    ^17:5 He who denounces his friends for a prey, even the eyes of his sons will fail.

    ^17:6 But he has made me a parable of the people and they spit in my face. ^17:7 My eye also is dim because of sorrow and all my members are as a shadow.

    ^17:8 Upright men will be astonished at this and the innocent will stir himself up against the profane.^17:9 Yet the righteous will hold on his way. And he who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.

    ^17:10 But as for you^* all, come on now again and I will not find a wise man among you^*.

    ^17:11 My days are past. My purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart. ^17:12 They change the night into day. The light, they say, is near to the darkness.

    ^17:13 If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness, ^17:14 if I have said to corruption, You are my father, to the worm, My mother and my sister, ^17:15 where then is my hope? And as for my hope, who will see it? ^17:16 It will go down to the bars of Sheol when once there is rest in the dust.