Job 30

30 ¹But now they that are younger than I have me in derision,

Whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.

²Yea, the strength of their hands, whereto should it profit me?

Men in whom ripe age is perished.

³They are gaunt with want and famine;

They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of wasteness and desolation.

⁴They pluck salt-wort by the bushes;

And the roots of the broom are their food.

⁵They are driven forth from the midst of men;

They cry after them as after a thief;

⁶So that they dwell in frightful valleys,

In holes of the earth and of the rocks.

⁷Among the bushes they bray;

Under the nettles they are gathered together.

⁸They are children of fools, yea, children of base men;

They were scourged out of the land.

⁹And now I am become their song,

Yea, I am a byword unto them.

¹⁰They abhor me, they stand aloof from me,

And spare not to spit in my face.

¹¹For he hath loosed his cord, and afflicted me;

And they have cast off the bridle before me.

¹²Upon my right hand rise the rabble;

They thrust aside my feet,

And they cast up against me their ways of destruction.

¹³They mar my path,

They set forward my calamity,

Even men that have no helper.

¹⁴As through a wide breach they come:

In the midst of the ruin they roll themselves upon me.

¹⁵Terrors are turned upon me;

They chase mine honor as the wind;

And my welfare is passed away as a cloud.

¹⁶And now my soul is poured out within me;

Days of affliction have taken hold upon me.

¹⁷In the night season my bones are pierced in me,

And the pains that gnaw me take no rest.

¹⁸By God's great force is my garment disfigured;

It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.

¹⁹He hath cast me into the mire,

And I am become like dust and ashes.

²⁰I cry unto thee, and thou dost not answer me:

I stand up, and thou gazest at me.

²¹Thou art turned to be cruel to me;

With the might of thy hand thou persecutest me.

²²Thou liftest me up to the wind, thou causest me to ride upon it;

And thou dissolvest me in the storm.

²³For I know that thou wilt bring me to death,

And to the house appointed for all living.

²⁴Howbeit doth not one stretch out the hand in his fall?

Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?

²⁵Did not I weep for him that was in trouble?

Was not my soul grieved for the needy?

²⁶When I looked for good, then evil came;

And when I waited for light, there came darkness.

²⁷My heart is troubled, and resteth not;

Days of affliction are come upon me.

²⁸I go mourning without the sun:

I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.

²⁹I am a brother to jackals,

And a companion to ostriches.

³⁰My skin is black, and falleth from me,

And my bones are burned with heat.

³¹Therefore is my harp turned to mourning,

And my pipe into the voice of them that weep.