¹“My spirit is pulled down; my days are extinguished; the graveyard is for me. ²⌞Surely⌟ mockery is with me, and my eye ⌞rests⌟ on their provocation. ³Please lay down a pledge for me with yourself; who is he who will give security for my hand? ⁴Indeed, you have closed their mind from understanding; therefore, you will not let them triumph. ⁵He denounces friends for reward, so his children’s eyes will fail. ⁶“And he has made me a proverb for the peoples, ⌞and I am one before whom people spit⌟. ⁷And my eye has grown dim from grief, and the limbs of my body are all like a shadow. ⁸The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent excites himself over the godless. ⁹But the righteous holds on to his way, and ⌞he who has clean hands⌟ increases in strength. ¹⁰But ⌞all of you must return⌟—⌞please come⌟! But I shall not find a wise person among you. ¹¹“My days are past; my plans are broken down— even the desires of my heart. ¹²They make night into day, saying, ‘Light is ⌞near to darkness⌟.’ ¹³If I hope for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in the darkness, ¹⁴if I call to the pit, ‘You are my father,’ to the maggot, ‘You are my mother or my sister,’ ¹⁵where then is my hope? And ⌞who will see my hope⌟? ¹⁶Will they go down to the bars of Sheol? Or shall we descend together into the dust?”