3“Lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
    who is there that will give surety for me?
4Since you have closed their minds to understanding,
    therefore you will not let them triumph.
5Those who denounce friends for reward—
    the eyes of their children will fail.

6“He has made me a byword of the peoples,
    and I am one before whom people spit.
7My eye has grown dim from grief,
    and all my members are like a shadow.
8The upright are appalled at this,
    and the innocent stir themselves up against the godless.
9Yet the righteous hold to their way,
    and they that have clean hands grow stronger and stronger.
10But you, come back now, all of you,
    and I shall not find a sensible person among you.
11My days are past, my plans are broken off,
    the desires of my heart.
12They make night into day;
    ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’[a]
13If I look for Sheol as my house,
    if I spread my couch in darkness,
14if I say to the Pit, ‘You are my father,’
    and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
15where then is my hope?
    Who will see my hope?
16Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
    Shall we descend together into the dust?”