Job 30, side by side

¹“But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to entrust with my sheep dogs.

¹But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.

²What use to me was the strength of their hands, since their vigor had left them?

²Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished?

³Gaunt from poverty and hunger, they gnawed the dry land, and the desolate wasteland by night.

³For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.

⁴They plucked mallow among the shrubs, and the roots of the broom tree were their food.

⁴Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.

⁵They were banished from among men, shouted down like thieves,

⁵They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;)

⁶so that they lived on the slopes of the wadis, among the rocks and in holes in the ground.

⁶To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks.

⁷They cried out among the shrubs and huddled beneath the nettles.

⁷Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.

⁸A senseless and nameless brood, they were driven off the land.

⁸They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.

⁹And now they mock me in song; I have become a byword among them.

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

¹⁰They abhor me and keep far from me; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

¹⁰They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face.

¹¹Because God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.

¹¹Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me.

¹²The rabble arises at my right; they lay snares for my feet and build siege ramps against me.

¹²Upon my right hand rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction.

¹³They tear up my path; they profit from my destruction, with no one to restrain them.

¹³They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper.

¹⁴They advance as through a wide breach; through the ruins they keep rolling in.

¹⁴They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters: in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me.

¹⁵Terrors are turned loose against me; they drive away my dignity as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.

¹⁵Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my soul as the wind: and my welfare passeth away as a cloud.

¹⁶And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction grip me.

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

¹⁷Night pierces my bones, and my gnawing pains never rest.

¹⁷My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.

¹⁸With great force He grasps my garment; He seizes me by the collar of my tunic.

¹⁸By the great force of my disease is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.

¹⁹He throws me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ashes.

¹⁹He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes.

²⁰I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer; when I stand up, You merely look at me.

²⁰I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me not.

²¹You have ruthlessly turned on me; You oppose me with Your strong hand.

²¹Thou art become cruel to me: with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me.

²²You snatch me up into the wind and drive me before it; You toss me about in the storm.

²²Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou causest me to ride upon it, and dissolvest my substance.

²³Yes, I know that You will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.

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

²⁴Yet no one stretches out his hand to a ruined man when he cries for help in his distress.

²⁴Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction.

²⁵Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has my soul not grieved for the needy?

²⁵Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? was not my soul grieved for the poor?

²⁶But when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, darkness fell.

²⁶When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness.

²⁷I am churning within and cannot rest; days of affliction confront me.

²⁷My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me.

²⁸I go about blackened, but not by the sun. I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

²⁸I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, and I cried in the congregation.

²⁹I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of ostriches.

²⁹I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

³⁰My skin grows black and peels, and my bones burn with fever.

³⁰My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

³¹My harp is tuned to mourning and my flute to the sound of weeping.

³¹My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.