Job 30

¹  “But now those who are younger than I have me in derision,
    whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs.
² Of what use is the strength of their hands to me,
    men in whom ripe age has perished?
³ They are gaunt from lack and famine.
    They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation.
⁴ They pluck salt herbs by the bushes.
    The roots of the broom tree are their food.
⁵ They are driven out from among men.
    They cry after them as after a thief;
⁶ So that they dwell in frightful valleys,
    and in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
⁷ They bray among the bushes.
    They are gathered together under the nettles.
⁸ They are children of fools, yes, children of wicked men.
    They were flogged out of the land.

⁹ “Now I have become their song.
    Yes, I am a byword to them.
¹⁰ They abhor me, they stand aloof from me,
    and don’t hesitate to spit in my face.
¹¹ For he has untied his cord, and afflicted me;
    and they have thrown off restraint before me.
¹² On my right hand rise the rabble.
    They thrust aside my feet,
    They cast up against me their ways of destruction.
¹³ They mar my path.
    They promote my destruction
    without anyone’s help.
¹⁴ As through a wide breach they come.
    They roll themselves in amid the ruin.
¹⁵ Terrors have turned on me.
    They chase my honor as the wind.
    My welfare has passed away as a cloud.

¹⁶ “Now my soul is poured out within me.
    Days of affliction have taken hold of me.
¹⁷ In the night season my bones are pierced in me,
    and the pains that gnaw me take no rest.
¹⁸ My garment is disfigured by great force.
    It binds me about as the collar of my tunic.
¹⁹ He has cast me into the mire.
    I have become like dust and ashes.
²⁰ I cry to you, and you do not answer me.
    I stand up, and you gaze at me.
²¹ You have turned to be cruel to me.
    With the might of your hand you persecute me.
²² You lift me up to the wind, and drive me with it.
    You dissolve me in the storm.
²³ For I know that you will bring me to death,
    to the house appointed for all living.

²⁴ “However doesn’t one stretch out a hand in his fall?
    Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?
²⁵ Didn’t I weep for him who was in trouble?
    Wasn’t my soul grieved for the needy?
²⁶ When I looked for good, then evil came.
    When I waited for light, darkness came.
²⁷ My heart is troubled, and doesn’t rest.
    Days of affliction have come on me.
²⁸ I go mourning without the sun.
    I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.
²⁹ I am a brother to jackals,
    and a companion to ostriches.
³⁰ My skin grows black and peels from me.
    My bones are burned with heat.
³¹ Therefore my harp has turned to mourning,
    and my pipe into the voice of those who weep.

Job 29   ■   Job 31