Job 17:11–16

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.

¹⁰I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.

⁹A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.

¹⁵And in this confidence I was minded to come unto you before, that ye might have a second benefit;

¹⁶And to pass by you into Macedonia, and to come again out of Macedonia unto you, and of you to be brought on my way toward Judæa.

¹⁷When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea yea, and nay nay?

¹⁰Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.

¹³Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:

¹⁴Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

¹⁵For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

³⁷¶ Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?

¹⁰Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

²⁵Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good.

²⁶They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey.

²¹There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.

¹³Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.

⁶⁷In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.

¹⁴The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief.

¹⁵The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me: and disguiseth his face.

¹⁶In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime: they know not the light.

¹³When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint;

¹⁴Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:

³So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.

⁴When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.

²¹Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death;

²²A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.

²He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.

¹⁴If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

¹MY breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.

¹³For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,

²³For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.

²⁵The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

²⁶It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

⁸If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

¹⁴Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.

¹⁰For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

⁴²So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:

⁵³For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

⁵⁴So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

³⁴And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David.

³⁵Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

³⁶For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption:

³⁷But he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption.

²⁷Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

²⁸Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.

²⁹Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day.

³⁰Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;

³¹He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.

¹¹Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.

²⁸And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.

²⁶They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them.

³²Yet shall he be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb.

³³The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him, and every man shall draw after him, as there are innumerable before him.

²⁰The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him; he shall be no more remembered; and wickedness shall be broken as a tree.

³⁰My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

⁹That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption.

²⁶And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:

¹⁵Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.

¹⁰He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath he removed like a tree.

⁶Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?

¹¹What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.

¹⁷There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.

¹⁸There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

¹⁹The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

⁶I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.

⁹But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:

¹¹¶ Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.

¹⁷Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

¹⁸For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.

¹³It shall devour the strength of his skin: even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.

¹⁴His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors.

¹⁸He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.

¹⁹He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain:

²⁰So that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat.

²¹His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out.

²²Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers.

²³If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness:

²⁴Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.

²⁵His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: he shall return to the days of his youth:

²⁶He shall pray unto God, and he will be favourable unto him: and he shall see his face with joy: for he will render unto man his righteousness.

²⁷He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not;

²⁸He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.

⁷Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.

⁴I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:

⁵Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.

⁶Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

⁷Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.

⁸Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.