Job 30

CHAPTER 30

¹“But now those younger than I ^alaugh at me,

Whose fathers I rejected even to put with the dogs of my flock.

²“Indeed, what good was the strength of their hands to me?

Vigor had perished from them.

³“From want and famine they are gaunt,

Who gnaw the dry ground by night in destruction and desolation,

⁴Who pluck ¹mallow by the bushes,

And whose food is the root of the broom tree.

⁵“They are driven from the community;

They shout against them as against a thief,

⁶So that they dwell in the slopes of the ¹valleys,

In holes of the dust and of the rocks.

⁷“Among the bushes they ¹cry out;

Under the nettles they are gathered together.

⁸“¹Wicked fools, even ²those without a name,

They were scourged from the land.

⁹“And now I have become their mocking ^asong;

I have even become a ^btaunting word to them.

¹⁰“They abhor me and keep a distance from me,

And they do not ¹hold back from ^aspitting at my face.

¹¹“Because ¹He has loosed ²His ³bowstring and ^aafflicted me,

They have thrust aside ^btheir bridle before me.

¹²“On the right hand their ¹brood arises;

They ^athrust aside my feet ^band build up against me their ways to disaster.

¹³“They ^abreak up my path;

They profit ¹from my destruction;

They have no helper.

¹⁴“As through a wide breach they come,

¹Amid the storm they roll on.

¹⁵“^aTerrors are turned against me;

They pursue my nobility as the wind,

And my hope for salvation has passed away ^blike a cloud.

¹⁶“And now ^amy soul is poured out ¹within me;

Days of affliction have seized me.

¹⁷“At night it pierces ^amy bones ¹within me,

And my gnawing pains take no rest.

¹⁸“By a great force my garment is ^adistorted;

It seizes me about as the collar of my tunic.

¹⁹“He has cast me into the ^amire,

And I have become like dust and ashes.

²⁰“I ^acry out to You for help, but You do not answer me;

I stand up, and You carefully consider how to be against me.

²¹“You have ¹become cruel to me;

With the might of Your hand You ^ahunted me down.

²²“You ^alift me up to the wind and cause me to ride;

And You melt me away in a storm.

²³“For I know that You ^awill bring me to death

And to the ^bhouse of meeting for all living.

²⁴“Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand,

Or, in his upheaval, is there a ^acry for help because of them?

²⁵“Have I not ^awept for the ¹one whose life is hard?

Was not my soul grieved for ^bthe needy?

²⁶“When I ^ahoped for good, then evil came;

When I waited for light, ^bthen thick darkness came.

²⁷“¹I am boiling ^awithin and cannot be silent;

Days of affliction confront me.

²⁸“I go about ^adarkened but not by the sun;

I stand up in the assembly and ^bcry out for help.

²⁹“I have become a brother to ^ajackals

And a companion of ostriches.

³⁰“My ^askin turns black ¹on me,

And my ^bbones burn with ²fever.

³¹“Therefore my ^aharp ¹is turned to mourning,

And my flute to the sound of those who weep.