Job 17

My spirit is maimed, broken, and confounded with trouble; and my breath stinks as in dying persons: the days of my life are thunderstruck, shortened, and debased: nothing but the grave remains for me

Job 17:2

O God, do not my friends bitterly mock and deride me as a wicked hypocrite? And does not my mind so dwell and pore on their proud, insolent, and exasperating, speeches, that I cannot sleep, or mine eyes refrain from tears?

Job 17:3

Come, then, give me undoubted assurance that thou wilt take my cause in hand and do me justice; or give me an impartial man like myself, who in thy stead shall debate the matter with me

Job 17:4

For, as for these my friends, thou hast withheld from them a common capacity to understand thy providential dispensations, therefore they can never be honoured to judge my plea

Job 17:5

He who flatters friends in their wickedness because of their prosperity, or who manifestly makes a prey of them, his posterity shall pine away in disappointment and misery

Job 17:6

Alas! both God and my friends now combine to expose me to the common contempt of the people, though lately I was their darling and the matter of their praise

Job 17:7

My eyes are rendered dim, and my mind stupified with grief, and my body is wasted to a skeleton

Job 17:8

Upright saints in after times shall be astonished at the sovereign dispensations of God, and the cruel abuse of my friends, with respect to me; and shall be excited to the utmost detestation of hypocrites, who uncharitably censure the afflicted

Job 17:9

And, notwithstanding every scandal or discouragement, persons truly righteous shall persevere in their course of piety and virtue, and become more and more confirmed and active in it

Job 17:10

And, as for you, my friends, either repent of your rash censures, or examine my cause over again; for hitherto none of you have spoken to the point

Job 17:11

Whatever hopes you give me of recovering my wonted prosperity, I find I am a dying man, and all my designs, even the most fixed and dear, are at an end

Job 17:12

My tormenting pains and anxious thoughts keep me awake through the whole night; or if I get any moments of ease, it is but little, and soon over

Job 17:13

I expect, I wait for, nothing now but an entrance into the state of the dead; and I have prepared for, and expect speedily to lie down in, the grave

Job 17:14

In the form of my trouble, and in the exercise of my mind, I have contracted a relation to, and familiarity with death, corruption and worms

Job 17:15

The future prosperity with which you attempt to flatter me, and the temporal happiness you would have me expect, are a mere imagination: 16. These hopes shall quickly appear buried in the grave along with myself

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XVII.—Happy are those who have spiritual breath which cannot corrupt; life that can never fail; who have their portion in eternal blessedness, and are ready for their grave! If cruel friends exasperate my spirit, and drive sleep from mine eyes, let Jesus, as my surety and righteousness, be the ground of all my hope, and the source of all my joys,—God can easily infatuate the wisest when they abuse his gifts. And it is mad to pursue honour and advancements by sinful methods, particularly in employing the wisdom which he has given against his cause and interest. Vain is the unconstant applause of men. While we are great the world admire us; but when depressed and poor they contemn or abhor us. But, though we see things in providence which we cannot account for, we must not stagger through unbelief. And, if we are faithful to God, we must be zealous for his cause, and take part with his oppressed people, whose bitterest enemies are usually formal hypocrites. They who are once brought into God’s new covenant way, Jesus Christ, and a course of holiness, never utterly faint or fail; nay, even difficulties and opposition quicken them. Many great pretenders to wisdom can give no profitable instructions in a day of trial; and empty are the promises, and vain the hopes of carnal minds. How debasing to proud men are death and the grave! And even good men are apt to despair of that which God really intends for them. Happy are they who rest in Christ here—they shall rest in death, and in heaven for ever and ever!