When Hope Feels Like a Lie — The Book of Job

Job says his breath is corrupt, his days are extinct, and the graves are ready for him. Mockers are with him, and his eye continues in their provocation. He asks who will strike hands with him, because their heart has been hid from understanding. The man who speaks flattery to his friends, he says, will see even the eyes of his children fail.

He has been made a byword of the people. Aforetime he was as a tabret. Now his eye is dim by reason of sorrow, and all his members are as a shadow. Upright men shall be astonied at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite. The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. Then he turns: return, and come now, for I cannot find one wise man among you.

His days are past, and his purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of his heart. They change the night into day. The light is short because of darkness. If he waits, the grave is his house. He has made his bed in the darkness. He has said to corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister. Where is now my hope, and who shall see it? They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when their rest together is in the dust.