Chapter 17

  My spirit is consumed, my days are extinct, The grave is [ready] for me.  

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  Surely there are mockers with me, And mine eye dwelleth upon their provocation.  

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  Give now a pledge, be surety for me with thyself; Who is there that will strike hands with me?  

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  For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: Therefore shalt thou not exalt [them].  

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  He that denounceth his friends for a prey, Even the eyes of his children shall fail.  

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  But he hath made me a byword of the people; And they spit in my face.  

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  Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, And all my members are as a shadow.  

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  Upright men shall be astonished at this, And the innocent shall stir up himself against the godless.  

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  Yet shall the righteous hold on his way, And he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger.  

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  But as for you all, come on now again; And I shall not find a wise man among you.  

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  My days are past, my purposes are broken off, Even the thoughts of my heart.  

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  They change the night into day: The light, [say they], is near unto the darkness.  

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  If I look for Sheol as my house; If I have spread my couch in the darkness;  

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  If I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; To the worm, [Thou art] my mother, and my sister;  

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  Where then is my hope? And as for my hope, who shall see it?  

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  It shall go down to the bars of Sheol, When once there is rest in the dust.  

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