“Nevertheless the righteous will hold to his way,
And he who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.

“If I look for Sheol as my home,
I make my bed in the darkness;

“My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished,
The grave is ready for me.

“Will it go down with me to Sheol?
Shall we together go down into the dust?”

“Surely mockers are with me,
And my eye gazes on their provocation.

“My days are past, my plans are torn apart,
Even the wishes of my heart.

If I call to the pit, ‘You are my father’;
To the worm, ‘my mother and my sister’;

“Lay down, now, a pledge for me with Yourself;
Who is there that will be my guarantor?

“But He has made me a byword of the people,
And I am one at whom men spit.

“For You have kept their heart from understanding,
Therefore You will not exalt them.

“He who informs against friends for a share of the spoil,
The eyes of his children also will languish.

“But come again all of you now,
For I do not find a wise man among you.

“They make night into day, saying,
‘The light is near,’ in the presence of darkness.

“My eye has also grown dim because of grief,
And all my members are as a shadow.

“The upright will be appalled at this,
And the innocent will stir up himself against the godless.

Where now is my hope?
And who regards my hope?