1“My spirit is crushed; my life is extinguished; the grave is ready for me.

2Mockers surround me. I see how bitterly they ridicule me.

3God, you need to put down a pledge for me with yourself, for who else will be my guarantor?

4You have closed their minds to understanding, ⁹⁴so do not let them win!

5They betray friends to gain benefit for themselves and their children suffer for it. ⁹⁵

6He has made me a proverb of ridicule ⁹⁶among the people; they spit in my face.

7My eyes are worn out from crying and my body is a shadow of its former self.

8People who think they are good are shocked to see me. Those who are innocent are troubled by the godless. ⁹⁷

9Those who are right keep going, and those whose hands are clean grow stronger and stronger.

10Why don't you come back and repeat again what you've been saying?—yet I still won't find a wise man among you!

11My life is over. My plans are gone. My heart is broken.

12They turn night into day, and say that daylight is close to darkness. ⁹⁸

13What am I looking for? To make my home in Sheol, ⁹⁹to make my bed in darkness?

14Should I call the grave ¹⁰⁰my father, and the maggot my mother or my sister?

15So then where is my hope? Can anyone see any hope for me?

16Will hope go down with me to the gates of Sheol? Will we go down together into the dust?”