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17:1 My spirit is broken, my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me. 17:2 Surely there are mockers around me, and my eye dwells on their provocation. 17:3 "Lay down a pledge for me with yourself; who is there that will give surety for me? 17:4 Since you have closed their minds to understanding, therefore you will not let them triumph. 17:5 Those who denounce friends for reward-- the eyes of their children will fail. 17:6 "He has made me a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whom people spit. 17:7 My eye has grown dim from grief, and all my members are like a shadow. 17:8 The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless. 17:9 Yet the righteous hold to their way, and they that have clean hands grow stronger and stronger. 17:10 But you, come back now, all of you, and I shall not find a sensible person among you. 17:11 My days are past, my plans are broken off, the desires of my heart. 17:12 They make night into day; 'The light,' they say, 'is near to the darkness.' 17:13 If I look for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in darkness, 17:14 if I say to the Pit, 'You are my father,' and to the worm, 'My mother,' or 'My sister,' 17:15 where then is my hope? Who will see my hope? 17:16 Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?"