Job 30

30 ¹ But now those younger than I laugh at me — men whose fathers I would have refused to put with the dogs of my flock. ² What good was the strength of their hands to me? Their vigor was spent. ³ Gaunt with poverty and hunger, they gnawed the parched ground in the gloom of waste and desolation. ⁴ They plucked saltwort among the bushes, and the roots of the broom tree were their food. ^a a v4 Saltwort and broom trees are scrubby desert plants — the last-resort food of the utterly destitute. ⁵ They were driven out from human company; people shouted after them as after a thief. ⁶ They had to live in the gullies of dry riverbeds, in holes in the ground and the rocks. ⁷ Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they huddled together. ⁸ A senseless, nameless brood, they were driven out of the land.

⁹ And now I have become their taunting song; I am a laughingstock to them. ¹⁰ They detest me and keep their distance; they do not hold back from spitting in my face. ¹¹ Because he has loosed my bowstring and humbled me, they have thrown off all restraint before me. ¹² On my right hand the rabble rise up; they shove my feet aside and build their siege ramps of ruin against me. ¹³ They tear up my path; they profit from my calamity, and no one holds them back. ¹⁴ They advance as through a wide breach; amid the crash they come surging in. ¹⁵ Terrors are turned loose against me; my honor is driven away as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.

¹⁶ And now my life is poured out within me; days of affliction have seized me. ¹⁷ At night my bones are pierced through, and the gnawing pains never rest. ¹⁸ With great force my garment is twisted; it binds me tight like the collar of my tunic. ¹⁹ He has thrown me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.

²⁰ I cry to you for help, but you do not answer me; I stand up, and you only stare at me. ²¹ You have turned cruel to me; with the strength of your hand you attack me. ²² You lift me up to the wind and make me ride it; you toss me about in the roar of the storm. ²³ For I know you will bring me down to death, to the house appointed for all the living.

²⁴ Yet does no one stretch out a hand from the ruins, or cry for help in his disaster? ²⁵ Did I not weep for the one whose day was hard? Did my soul not grieve for the needy? ²⁶ But when I hoped for good, evil came; when I waited for light, darkness fell. ²⁷ My insides churn and will not be still; days of affliction confront me. ²⁸ I go about blackened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help. ²⁹ I have become a brother to jackals and a companion to ostriches. ³⁰ My skin turns black and peels away from me, and my bones burn with fever. ³¹ My lyre is tuned to mourning, and my flute to the sound of weeping.