17:1
My breathing is growing weaker and the gravediggers are gathering for me.
17:2
Scoffers are my only companions, their harshness haunts my nights.
17:3
So you must go bail for me to yourself, for which of them cares to clap his hand on mine?
17:4
For you have shut their hearts to reason, hence not a hand is lifted.
17:5
Just so is a man who invites his friends to share his property while the eyes of his own children languish.
17:6
I have become a byword among foreigners, and a creature on whose face to spit,
17:7
since I am nearly blind with grief and my limbs are reduced to a shadow.
17:8
Any honest person is appalled at the sight, the innocent is indignant at the sinner.
17:9
Anyone upright grows stronger step by step: and anyone whose hands are clean grows ever in vigour!
17:10
Come on then, all of you, back to the attack! I shall not find one wise man among you!
17:11
My days are over, so are my plans, my heart-strings are broken;
17:12
yet they would have me believe that night is day, that light to dispel the darkness is at hand,
17:13
when all I want, in fact, is to dwell in Sheol and in that darkness there to make my bed!
17:14
To the tomb, I cry, 'You are my father!' -- to the worm, 'You are my mother-you, my sister!'
17:15
Where then is my hope? Who can see any happiness for me?
17:16
unless they come down to Sheol with me, all of us sinking into the dust together?
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