Job’s Present Misery

30:1 “But now they mock me, those who are younger1 than I,

whose fathers I disdained too much2

to put with my sheep dogs.3

30:2 Moreover, the strength of their4 hands—

what use was it to me?

Men whose strength5 had perished;

30:3 gaunt6 with want and hunger,

they would gnaw7 the parched land,

in former time desolate and waste.8

30:4 By the brush9 they would gather10 herbs from the salt marshes,11

and the root of the broom tree was their food.

30:5 They were banished from the community12—

people13 shouted at them

like they would shout at thieves14—

30:6 so that they had to live15

in the dry stream beds,16

in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks.

30:7 They brayed17 like animals among the bushes

and were huddled together18 under the nettles.

30:8 Sons of senseless and nameless people,19

they were driven out of the land with whips.20