Job’s Fifth Speech, Continued

¹ “My spirit is pulled down; my days are extinguished; the graveyard is for me.

² ⌞Surely⌟¹ mockery is with me, and my eye ⌞rests⌟² on their provocation.

1. Literally “If not”
2. Literally “spends the night”

³ Please lay down a pledge for me with yourself; who is he who will give security for my hand?¹

1. Or “who will give security for me?”

⁴ Indeed,¹ you have closed their mind from understanding; therefore, you will not let them triumph.

1. Or “For”

⁵ He denounces friends for reward, so¹ his children’s eyes will fail.

1. Hebrew “and”

⁶ “And he has made me a proverb for¹ the peoples, ⌞and I am one before whom people spit⌟.²

1. Hebrew “of”
2. Literally “and spitting to the faces I am”

⁷ And my eye has grown dim from grief, and the limbs of my body are all¹ like a shadow.

1. Hebrew “all of them”

⁸ The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent excites himself over the godless.

⁹ But¹ the righteous holds on to his way, and ⌞he who has clean hands⌟² increases in strength.

1. Hebrew “And”
2. Literally “the clean of hands”

¹⁰ But¹ ⌞all of you must return⌟²—⌞please come⌟!³ But⁴ I shall not find a wise person among you.

1. Literally “And but”
2. Literally “all of them you must return”
3. Literally “and please come,” or “come on!”
4. Hebrew “And”

¹¹ “My days are past; my plans are broken down— even the desires of my heart.

¹² They make night into day, saying, ‘Light is ⌞near to darkness⌟.’¹

1. Literally “near from the faces of darkness”

¹³ If I hope for Sheol as my house, if I spread my couch in the darkness,

¹⁴ if I call to the pit, ‘You are my father,’ to the maggot, ‘You are my mother or¹ my sister,’

1. Or “and”

¹⁵ where¹ then is my hope? And ⌞who will see my hope⌟?²

1. Hebrew “and where”
2. Literally “my hope who will see it”

¹⁶ Will they go down to the bars of Sheol? Or shall we descend together into the dust?”