Job 30:1-17 ▼

1 “But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs.

2 Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished?

3 They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation.

4 They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom tree are their food.

5 They are driven out from among men. They cry after them as after a thief,

6 so that they live in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

7 They bray among the bushes. They are gathered together under the nettles.

8 They are children of fools, yes, children of wicked men. They were flogged out of the land.

9 “Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them.

10 They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don’t hesitate to spit in my face.

11 For he has untied his cord, and afflicted me; and they have thrown off restraint before me.

12 On my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet. They cast their ways of destruction up against me.

13 They mar my path. They promote my destruction without anyone’s help.

14 As through a wide breach they come. They roll themselves in amid the ruin.

15 Terrors have turned on me. They chase my honor as the wind. My welfare has passed away as a cloud.

16 “Now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold of me.

17 In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest.