Job 30:1-17 ▼

1 [“] But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to put 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 (their fuel).

5 They were banished from among men, shouted at 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 \the bridle/ 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 (with no one to assist 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 {ruach}, 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.