Job 30

1. “But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have refused to put with the dogs of my flock.

2. Yea, what profit to me was the strength of their hands, for their vigor had perished from them?

3. They are dried up with want and famine; who fled into the wilderness, which was before desolate and waste,

4. Those plucking mallows by the bushes, and broom roots for their food.

5. They are driven forth from the midst of men; they shouted after them as a thief.

6. They dwell in the clefts of the valleys, in caves of the earth and in rocks.

7. They bray among the bushes; they huddle together under the nettles;

8. They were children of fools, yea, children of base men; they were scourged out of the land.

9. And now I am their song; yea, I am their byword.

10. They despise me, and they flee far from me; they do not spare spitting in my face.

11. Because He has loosed my cord and afflicted me, they have also cast off restraint before me.

12. On my right an insolent brood rises; they push away my feet and cast up against me the ways of their destruction.

13. They have broken down my path, they gain by my trouble without anyone helping them.

14. As through a wide breach they come; in the midst of ruin they roll themselves upon me.

15. Terrors have turned upon me; they pursue my soul like the wind; and my good passes away like a cloud.

16. And now my soul is poured out within me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.

17. My bones are pierced with pain in the night; and my gnawing pains give me no rest.

18. By the great force of my disease my garment is disfigured; it binds me about like the collar of my coat.

19. He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.

20. I cried to You, and You did not answer me; I stood up, and You did not consider me.

21. You have become cruel to me; with Your mighty hand You oppose me.

22. You lift me up to the wind; You cause me to ride upon it; and You dissolve my substance.

23. For I know that You will bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.

24. Surely one will stretch out his hand from a ruinous heap, or in his calamity cry out for help.

25. Did I not weep for him who was in trouble; and was not my soul grieved for the poor?

26. When I looked for good, then evil came; and when I waited for light, then darkness came.

27. My bowels boiled, and did not rest; the days of trouble confront me.

28. I go in mourning without any comfort; I stood up and I cried out in the assembly.

29. I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to the ostrich.

30. My skin is black and falling from me, and my bones are burning with heat.

31. And my lyre has turned to mourning, and my pipe to the sound of weeping.”