Chapter 30

Job’s Present State Is Humiliating

1 “But now those younger than I amock me,

Whose fathers I disdained 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 waste and desolation,

4 Who pluck 1mallow by the bushes,

And whose food is the root of the broom shrub.

5 “They are driven from the community;

They shout against them as against a thief,

6 So that they dwell in dreadful 1valleys,

In holes of the earth and of the rocks.

7 “Among the bushes they 1cry out;

Under the nettles they are gathered together.

8 “1Fools, even 2those without a name,

They were scourged from the land.

9 “And now I have become their 1ataunt,

I have even become a bbyword to them.

10 “They abhor me and stand aloof from me,

And they do not 1refrain from aspitting at my face.

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

They have cast off bthe bridle before me.

12 “On the right hand their 1brood arises;

They athrust aside my feet band build up against me their ways of destruction.

13 “They abreak up my path,

They profit 1from my destruction;

No one restrains them.

14 “As through a wide breach they come,

1Amid the tempest they roll on.

15 “aTerrors are turned against me;

They pursue my 1honor as the wind,

And my 2prosperity 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 binds me about as the collar of my coat.

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 turn Your attention against me.

21 “You have 1become cruel to me;

With the might of Your hand You apersecute me.

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

And You dissolve me 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 disaster therefore acry out for help?

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

Was not my soul grieved for bthe needy?

26 “When I aexpected good, then evil came;

When I waited for light, bthen darkness came.

27 “1I am seething awithin and cannot relax;

Days of affliction confront me.

28 “I go about 1amourning without comfort;

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.