Job 30:1-31
30 “And now they have laughed at me,+Those younger in days than I am,+Whose fathers I would have refusedTo place with the dogs of my flock.
2 Even the power of their hands—of what use was it to me?In them vigor has perished.+
3 Because of want and hunger they are sterile,Gnawing at a waterless region,+[Where] yesterday there were storm and desolation.
4 They were plucking the salt herb by the bushes,And the root of broom trees was their food.
5 From the community they would be driven away;+People would shout at them as at a thief.
6 [They have] to reside on the very slope of torrent valleys,In holes of the dust and in rocks.
7 Among the bushes they would cry out;Under the nettles they would huddle together.
8 Sons of the senseless one,+ also sons of the nameless one,They have been scourged out of the land.
9 And now I have become even the theme of their song,+And I am to them for a byword.+
10 They have detested me, they have kept themselves far from me;+And from my face they did not hold back [their] spit.+
11 For he loosened [my] own bowstring and proceeded to humble me,And the bridle they left loose on my account.
12 At [my] right hand they rise up as a brood;My feet they have let go,But they proceeded to cast up against me their disastrous barriers.+
13 They have torn down my roadways;They were beneficial only for adversity to me,+Without their having any helper.
14 As through a wide gap they proceed to come;Under a storm they have rolled along.
15 Sudden terrors have been turned upon me;My noble bearing is chased like the wind,*And like a cloud my salvation has passed away.
16 And now my soul is poured out within me;+Days of affliction+ take hold upon me.
17 At night my very bones+ have been bored through [and dropped] from off me,And [pains] gnawing me do not take any rest.+
18 By the abundance of power my garment takes on a change;Like the collar of my long garment it engirdles me.
19 He has brought me down to the clay,So that I show myself like dust and ashes.
20 I cry to you for help, but you do not answer me;+I have stood, that you might show yourself attentive to me.
21 You change yourself to become cruel to me;+With the full might of your hand you harbor animosity toward me.
22 You lift me to the wind, you cause me to ride [it];Then you dissolve me with a crash.
23 For I well know that to death you will make me turn back,+And to the house of meeting for everyone living.
24 Only no one thrusts his hand out against a mere heap of ruins,+Nor during one’s decay is there a cry for help respecting those things.
25 Certainly I have wept for the one having a hard day;+My soul has grieved for the poor one.+
26 Although for good I waited, yet bad came;+And I kept awaiting the light, but gloom came.
27 My own intestines were made to boil and did not keep silent;Days of affliction confronted me.
28 Saddened+ I walked about when there was no sunlight;*I got up in the congregation,* I kept crying for help.
29 A brother to jackals I became,And a companion to the daughters of the ostrich.+
30 My very skin became black+ [and dropped] off me,And my very bones became hot from dryness.
31 And my harp came to be merely for mourning,And my pipe for the voice of weeping ones.
Footnotes
^ “Sunlight,” M; by a correction, “comfort.”
^ “In the congregation.” Heb., vaq·qa·halʹ; Gr., ek·kle·siʹai.
