Job 30

¹But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock. ²Yea, the strength of their hands, whereto should it profit me? men in whom ripe age is perished. ³They are gaunt with want and famine; they gnaw the dry ground; in the gloom of wasteness and desolation. ⁴They pluck salt-wort by the bushes; and the roots of the broom aretheir meat. ⁵They are driven forth from the midst of men; they cry after them as after a thief. ⁶In the clefts of the valleys must they dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks. ⁷Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they are gathered together. ⁸They arechildren of fools, yea, children of base men; they were scourged out of the land. ⁹And now I am become their song, yea, I am a byword unto them. ¹⁰They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and spare not to spit in my face. ¹¹For he hath loosed his cord, and afflicted me, and they have cast off the bridle before me. ¹²Upon my right hand rise the rabble; they thrust aside my feet, and they cast up against me their ways of destruction. ¹³They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, evenmen that have no helper. ¹⁴As through a wide breach they come: in the midst of the ruin they roll themselves upon me. ¹⁵Terrors are turned upon me, they chase mine honour as the wind; and my welfare is passed away as a cloud. ¹⁶And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have taken hold upon me. ¹⁷In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the painsthat gnaw me take no rest. ¹⁸By the great force of my diseaseis my garment disfigured: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat. ¹⁹He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes. ²⁰I cry unto thee, and thou dost not answer me: I stand up, and thou lookest at me. ²¹Thou art turned to be cruel to me: with the might of thy hand thou persecutest me. ²²Thou liftest me up to the wind, thou causest me to ride upon it; and thou dissolvest me in the storm. ²³For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living. ²⁴Surely against a ruinous heap he will not put forth his hand; though it bein his destruction, one may uttera cry because of these things. ²⁵Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? was not my soul grieved for the needy? ²⁶When I looked for good, then evil came; and when I waited for light, there came darkness. ²⁷My bowels boil, and rest not; days of affliction are come upon me. ²⁸I go mourning without the sun: I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help. ²⁹I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches. ³⁰My skin is black, and fallethfrom me, and my bones are burned with heat. ³¹Therefore is my harp turnedto mourning, and my pipe into the voice of them that weep.