Job 30
Job’s Present State Is Humiliating
1 “But now those younger than I mock and laugh at me,
Whose fathers I refused to put with the sheepdogs of my flock.
2 “Indeed, how could the strength of their hands profit me?
Vigor had perished from them.
3 “They are gaunt with want and famine;
They gnaw the dry and barren ground by night in [the gloom of] waste and desolation.
4 “They pluck [and eat] [a]saltwort (mallows) among the bushes,
And their food is the root of the broom shrub.
5 “They are driven from the community;
They shout after them as after a thief.
6 “They must dwell on the slopes of [b]wadis
And in holes in the ground and in rocks.
7 “Among the bushes they cry out [like wild animals];
Beneath the prickly scrub they gather and huddle together.
8 “They are the sons of [worthless and nameless] fools,
They have been driven out of the land.
9 “And now I have become [the subject of] their taunting;
Yes, I am a [c]byword and a laughingstock to them.
10 “They hate me, they stand aloof from me,
And do not refrain from spitting in my face.
11 “For God has loosed His bowstring [attacking me] and [He has] afflicted and humbled me;
They have cast off the bridle [of restraint] before me.
12 “On my right the [rabble] brood rises;
They push my feet away, and they build up their ways of destruction against me [like an advancing army].
13 “They break up and clutter my path [upsetting my plans],
They profit from my destruction;
No one restrains them.
14 “As through a wide breach they come,
Amid the crash [of falling walls] they roll on [over me].
15 “Terrors are turned upon me;
They chase away my honor and reputation like the wind,
And my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.
16 “And now my soul is poured out within me;
The days of affliction have seized me.
17 “My bones are pierced [with aching] in the night season,
And the pains that gnaw me take no rest.
18 “By the great force [of my disease] my garment (skin) is disfigured and blemished;
It binds about me [choking me] like the collar of my coat.
19 “God has cast me into the mire [a swampland of crisis],
And I have become [worthless] like dust and ashes.
20 “I cry to You for help, [Lord,] but You do not answer me;
I stand up, but You [only] gaze [indifferently] at me.
21 “You have become harsh and cruel to me;
With the might of Your hand You [keep me alive only to] persecute me.
22 “You lift me up on the wind and cause me to ride [upon it];
And You toss me about in the tempest and dissolve me in the storm.
23 “For I know that You will bring me to death
And to the house of meeting [appointed] for all the living.
24 “However, does not one falling in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand?
Or in his disaster [will he not] therefore cry out for help?
25 “Did I not weep for one whose life was hard and filled with trouble?
Was not my heart grieved for the needy?
26 “When I expected good, then came evil [to me];
And when I waited for light, then came darkness.
27 “I am seething within and my heart is troubled and cannot rest;
Days of affliction come to meet me.
28 “I go about mourning without comfort [my skin blackened by disease, not by the heat of the sun];
I stand up in the assembly and cry out for help.
29 “I am a brother to [howling] jackals,
And a companion to ostriches [which scream dismally].
30 “My skin falls from me in blackened flakes,
And my bones are burned with fever.
31 “Therefore my lyre (harp) is used for [the sound of] mourning,
And my flute for the [sound of the] voices of those who weep.
[a] v4: I.e. a plant of the salt marshes.
[b] v6: I.e. gullies or valleys made by torrents of water.
[c] v9: I.e. the object of cruel jokes.