Job
30 “And now they have laughed at me,+
Those younger in days than I am,+
Whose fathers I would have refused
To place with the dogs of my flock.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
31 And my harp came to be merely for mourning,
And my pipe for the voice of weeping ones.