Job 30

¹But now they laugh at me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock .

²What could I gain from the strength of their hands , men whose vigor is gone ?

³Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation ;

⁴they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes , and the roots of the broom tree for their food .

⁵They are driven out from human company ; they shout after them as after a thief .

⁶In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell , in holes of the earth and of the rocks .

⁷Among the bushes they bray ; under the nettles they huddle together .

⁸A senseless , a nameless brood , they have been whipped out of the land .

⁹And now I have become their song ; I am a byword to them.

¹⁰They abhor me; they keep aloof from me; they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.

¹¹Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me, they have cast off restraint in my presence .

¹²On my right hand the rabble rise ; they push away my feet ; they cast up against me their ways of destruction .

¹³They break up my path ; they promote my calamity ; they need no one to help them.

¹⁴As through a wide breach they come ; amid the crash they roll on .

¹⁵Terrors are turned upon me; my honor is pursued as by the wind , and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud .

¹⁶And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have taken hold of me.

¹⁷The night racks my bones , and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest .

¹⁸With great force my garment is disfigured ; it binds me about like the collar of my tunic .

¹⁹God has cast me into the mire , and I have become like dust and ashes .

²⁰I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand , and you only look at me.

²¹You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me.

²²You lift me up on the wind ; you make me ride on it, and you toss me about in the roar of the storm .

²³For I know that you will bring me to death and to the house appointed for all living .

²⁴Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand , and in his disaster cry for help ?

²⁵Did not I weep for him whose day was hard ? Was not my soul grieved for the needy ?

²⁶But when I hoped for good , evil came , and when I waited for light , darkness came .

²⁷My inward parts are in turmoil and never still ; days of affliction come to meet me.

²⁸I go about darkened , but not by the sun ; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help .

²⁹I am a brother of jackals and a companion of ostriches .

³⁰My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with heat .

³¹My lyre is turned to mourning , and my pipe to the voice of those who weep .