Job - Chapter 30 - A Conservative Version
- But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.
- Yea, the strength of their hands, to what should it profit me? Men in whom ripe age is perished.
- They are gaunt with want and famine. They gnaw the dry ground in the gloom of waste and desolation.
- They pluck mallows by the bushes, and the roots of the juniper are their food.
- They are driven forth from the midst [of men]. They cry out after them as after a thief,
- so that they dwell in frightful valleys, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
- Among the bushes they bray, under the nettles they are gathered together.
- [They are] sons of fools, yea, sons of base men. They were scourged out of the land.
- And now I have become their song, Yea, I am a byword to them.
- They abhor me. They stand aloof from me, and do not spare to spit in my face.
- For he has loosed his cord, and afflicted me. And they have cast off the bridle before me.
- Upon my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet, and they cast up against me their ways of destruction.
- They mar my path. They set forward my calamity, [even] men who have no helper.
- As through a wide breach they come. In the midst of the ruin they roll themselves [upon me].
- Terrors are turned upon me. They chase my honor as the wind, and my welfare is passed away as a cloud.
- And now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold upon me.
- In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the [pains] that gnaw me take no rest.
- By the great force my garment is disfigured. It binds me about as the collar of my coat.
- He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.
- I cry to thee, and thou do not answer me. I stand up, and thou gaze at me.
- Thou have turned to be cruel to me. With the might of thy hand thou persecute me.
- Thou lift me up to the wind. Thou cause me to ride [upon it], and thou disintegrate me in the storm.
- For I know that thou will bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.
- However does not a man stretch out the hand in his fall? Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?
- Did I not weep for him who was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
- When I looked for good, then evil came. And when I waited for light, there came darkness.
- My heart is troubled, and does not rest. Days of affliction have come upon me.
- I go mourning without the sun. I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.
- I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.
- My skin is black, [and falls] from me. And my bones are burned with heat.
- Therefore my harp has [turned] to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of those who weep.