A reading from the book of Job.

My spirit is broken.

My days are extinct.

The graveyard is ready for me.

Surely there are mockers about me, and my eye dwells on their provocation.

Lay down a pledge for me with you.

Who is there who will put up security for me?

Since you have closed their hearts to

understanding, therefore you will not let them triumph. He who informs against his friends to get a share

of their property, the eyes of his children will fail. He has made me a byword of the peoples,

and I am one before whom men spit. My eye has grown dim from vexation, and all my members are like a shadow.

The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless,

yet the righteous holds to his way, and he who has clean hands grow stronger and stronger.

But you come on again, all of you, and I shall not find a wise man among you.

My days are past, my plans are broken off, the desires of my heart.

They make night in today.

The light they say is near to the darkness.

If I hope for Shi'ol as my house, if I make my bed in darkness,

if I say to the pit, you are my father, and to the worm my mother or my

sister, where then is my hope? Who will see my hope? Will it go down to the bars of Shio? Shall we

descend together into the dust? Then Bilad, the Shuhait, answered and said,

How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and then we will speak.

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