Job 30:1–31

¹ “But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to entrust with my sheep dogs. ² What use to me was the strength of their hands, since their vigor had left them? ³ Gaunt from poverty and hunger, they gnawed the dry land, and the desolate wasteland by night. ⁴ They plucked mallow among the shrubs, and the roots of the broom tree were their food. ⁵ They were banished from among men, shouted down like thieves, ⁶ so that they lived on the slopes of the wadis, among the rocks and in holes in the ground. ⁷ They cried out among the shrubs and huddled beneath the nettles. ⁸ A senseless and nameless brood, they were driven off the land. ⁹ And now they mock me in song; I have become a byword among them. ¹⁰ They abhor me and keep far from me; they do not hesitate to spit in my face. ¹¹ Because God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they have cast off restraint in my presence. ¹² The rabble arises at my right; they lay snares for my feet and build siege ramps against me. ¹³ They tear up my path; they profit from my destruction, with no one to restrain them. ¹⁴ They advance as through a wide breach; through the ruins they keep rolling in. ¹⁵ Terrors are turned loose against me; they drive away my dignity as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud. ¹⁶ And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction grip me. ¹⁷ Night pierces my bones, and my gnawing pains never rest. ¹⁸ With great force He grasps my garment; He seizes me by the collar of my tunic. ¹⁹ He throws me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ashes. ²⁰ I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer; when I stand up, You merely look at me. ²¹ You have ruthlessly turned on me; You oppose me with Your strong hand. ²² You snatch me up into the wind and drive me before it; You toss me about in the storm. ²³ Yes, I know that You will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living. ²⁴ Yet no one stretches out his hand to a ruined man when he cries for help in his distress. ²⁵ Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has my soul not grieved for the needy? ²⁶ But when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, darkness fell. ²⁷ I am churning within and cannot rest; days of affliction confront me. ²⁸ I go about blackened, but not by the sun. I stand up in the assembly and cry for help. ²⁹ I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of ostriches. ³⁰ My skin grows black and peels, and my bones burn with fever. ³¹ My harp is tuned to mourning and my flute to the sound of weeping.