³ Give now a pledge, be surety for me with thyself;
Who is there that will strike hands with me?
⁴ For thou hast hid their heart from understanding:
Therefore shalt thou not exalt them.
⁵ He that denounceth his friends for a ^[b]prey,
Even the eyes of his children shall fail.

⁶ But he hath made me a byword of the people;
And they spit in my face.
⁷ Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow,
And all my members are as a shadow.
⁸ Upright men shall be astonished at this,
And the innocent shall stir up himself against the godless.
⁹ Yet shall the righteous hold on his way,
And he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger.
¹⁰ But as for you all, come on now again;
^[c]And I shall not find a wise man among you.
¹¹ My days are past, my purposes are broken off,
Even the ^[d]thoughts of my heart.
¹² They change the night into day:
The light, say they, is near ^[e]unto the darkness.
¹³ If I ^[f]look for Sheol as my house;
If I have spread my couch in the darkness;
¹⁴ If I have said to ^[g]corruption, Thou art my father;
To the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister;
¹⁵ Where then is my hope?
And as for my hope, who shall see it?
¹⁶ It shall go down to the bars of Sheol,
When once there is rest in the dust.