Job 30

30:1

“But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to entrust with my sheep dogs.

30:2

What use to me was the strength of their hands, since their vigor had left them?

30:3

Gaunt from poverty and hunger, they gnawed the dry land, and the desolate wasteland by night.

30:4

They plucked mallow among the shrubs, and the roots of the broom tree were their food.

30:5

They were banished from among men, shouted down like thieves,

30:6

so that they lived on the slopes of the wadis, among the rocks and in holes in the ground.

30:7

They cried out among the shrubs and huddled beneath the nettles.

30:8

A senseless and nameless brood, they were driven off the land.

30:9

And now they mock me in song; I have become a byword among them.

30:10

They abhor me and keep far from me; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

30:11

Because God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.

30:12

The rabble arises at my right; they lay snares for my feet and build siege ramps against me.

30:13

They tear up my path; they profit from my destruction, with no one to restrain them.

30:14

They advance as through a wide breach; through the ruins they keep rolling in.

30:15

Terrors are turned loose against me; they drive away my dignity as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.

30:16

And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction grip me.

30:17

Night pierces my bones, and my gnawing pains never rest.

30:18

With great force He grasps my garment; He seizes me by the collar of my tunic.

30:19

He throws me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ashes.

30:20

I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer; when I stand up, You merely look at me.

30:21

You have ruthlessly turned on me; You oppose me with Your strong hand.

30:22

You snatch me up into the wind and drive me before it; You toss me about in the storm.

30:23

Yes, I know that You will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.

30:24

Yet no one stretches out his hand to a ruined man when he cries for help in his distress.

30:25

Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has my soul not grieved for the needy?

30:26

But when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, darkness fell.

30:27

I am churning within and cannot rest; days of affliction confront me.

30:28

I go about blackened, but not by the sun. I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

30:29

I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of ostriches.

30:30

My skin grows black and peels, and my bones burn with fever.

30:31

My harp is tuned to mourning and my flute to the sound of weeping.