Job 17 (NLT)
Job Continues to Defend His Innocence
Job directs a complaint both towards earth and towards heaven:
“My spirit is crushed,
and my life is nearly snuffed out.
The grave is ready to receive me.
2 I am surrounded by mockers.
I watch how bitterly they taunt me.
3 “You must defend my innocence, O God,
since no one else will stand up for me.
4 You have closed their minds to understanding,
but do not let them triumph.
5 They betray their friends for their own advantage,
so let their children faint with hunger.
A faint bright glimmer in the hopeless condition of Job:
6 “God has made a mockery of me among the people;
they spit in my face.
7 My eyes are swollen with weeping,
and I am but a shadow of my former self.
8 The virtuous are horrified when they see me.
The innocent rise up against the ungodly.
9 The righteous keep moving forward,
and those with clean hands become stronger and stronger.
F.B. Meyer gave several reasons why the righteous will “hold their way.”
- You shall hold on your way because Jesus holds you in his strong hand. He is your Shepherd; He has vanquished all your foes, and you shall never perish.
- You shall hold on your way because the Father has designed through you to glorify His Son; and there must be no gaps in his crown where jewels ought to be.
- You shall hold on your way because the Holy Spirit has designed to make you his residence and home; and He is within you the perennial spring of a holy life.
–quoted by David Guzik
10 “As for all of you, come back with a better argument,
though I still won’t find a wise man among you.
11 My days are over.
My hopes have disappeared.
My heart’s desires are broken.
12 These men say that night is day;
they claim that the darkness is light.
13 What if I go to the grave
and make my bed in darkness?
14 What if I call the grave my father,
and the maggot my mother or my sister?
15 Where then is my hope?
Can anyone find it?
for all of us who are waiting . . .
16 No, my hope will go down with me to the grave.
We will rest together in the dust!”
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Music:
We need not lose hope! HERE is Hillsong and “Hope of the World.”
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New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
DWELLING in the Word 
