| 1. | My spirit is broken, my lamp of life extinguished; my burial is at hand. |
| 2. | I am indeed mocked, and, as their provocation mounts, my eyes grow dim. |
| 3. | Grant me one to offer you a pledge on my behalf: who is there that will give surety for me? |
| 4. | You darken their minds to knowledge; therefore they do not understand. |
| 5. | My lot is described as evil, |
| 6. | and I am made a byword of the people; their object lesson I have become. |
| 7. | My eye has grown blind with anguish, and all my frame is shrunken to a shadow. |
| 8. | Upright men are astonished at this, and the innocent aroused against the wicked. |
| 9. | Yet the righteous shall hold to his way, and he who has clean hands increase in strength. |
| 10. | But turn now, and come on again; for I shall not find a wise man among you! |
| 11. | My days are passed away, my plans are at an end, the cherished purposes of my heart. |
| 12. | Such men change the night into day; where there is darkness they talk of approaching light. |
| 13. | If I look for the nether world as my dwelling, if I spread my couch in the darkness, |
| 14. | If I must call corruption "my father," and the maggot "my mother" and "my sister," |
| 15. | Where then is my hope, and my prosperity, who shall see? |
| 16. | Will they descend with me into the nether world? Shall we go down together into the dust? |
