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.