and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’
He calls the pit his father and the worm his mother and sister.
This verse uses kinship language to describe intimacy with decay.
1“My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; 2Surely mockers surround me, 3Give me, I pray, the pledge You demand. 4You have closed their minds to understanding; 5If a man denounces his friends for a price, 6He has made me a byword among the people, 7My eyes have grown dim with grief, 8The upright are appalled at this, 9Yet a righteous one holds to his way, 10But come back and try again, all of you. 11My days have passed; my plans are broken off — 12They have turned night into day, 13If I look for Sheol as my home, 14and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ 15where then is my hope? 16Will it go down to the gates of Sheol?