VerseAI

NIV

Job 30

  1. 1<pb/><t>“But now they mock me,</t> <t>men younger than I,</t> <t>whose fathers I would have disdained</t> <t>to put with my sheep dogs.</t>
  2. 2<t>Of what use was the strength of their hands to me,</t> <t>since their vigor had gone from them?</t>
  3. 3<t>Haggard from want and hunger,</t> <t>they roamed<f>[45]</f> the parched land</t> <t>in desolate wastelands at night.</t>
  4. 4<t>In the brush they gathered salt herbs,</t> <t>and their food<f>[46]</f> was the root of the broom bush.</t>
  5. 5<t>They were banished from human society,</t> <t>shouted at as if they were thieves.</t>
  6. 6<t>They were forced to live in the dry stream beds,</t> <t>among the rocks and in holes in the ground.</t>
  7. 7<t>They brayed among the bushes</t> <t>and huddled in the undergrowth.</t>
  8. 8<t>A base and nameless brood,</t> <t>they were driven out of the land. <pb/></t>
  9. 9<t>“And now those young men mock me in song;</t> <t>I have become a byword among them.</t>
  10. 10<t>They detest me and keep their distance;</t> <t>they do not hesitate to spit in my face.</t>
  11. 11<t>Now that God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me,</t> <t>they throw off restraint in my presence.</t>
  12. 12<t>On my right the tribe<f>[47]</f> attacks;</t> <t>they lay snares for my feet,</t> <t>they build their siege ramps against me.</t>
  13. 13<t>They break up my road;</t> <t>they succeed in destroying me.</t> <t>‘No one can help him,’ they say.</t>
  14. 14<t>They advance as through a gaping breach;</t> <t>amid the ruins they come rolling in.</t>
  15. 15<t>Terrors overwhelm me;</t> <t>my dignity is driven away as by the wind,</t> <t>my safety vanishes like a cloud. <pb/></t>
  16. 16<t>“And now my life ebbs away;</t> <t>days of suffering grip me.</t>
  17. 17<t>Night pierces my bones;</t> <t>my gnawing pains never rest.</t>
  18. 18<t>In his great power God becomes like clothing to me<f>[48]</f>;</t> <t>he binds me like the neck of my garment.</t>
  19. 19<t>He throws me into the mud,</t> <t>and I am reduced to dust and ashes. <pb/></t>
  20. 20<t>“I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer;</t> <t>I stand up, but you merely look at me.</t>
  21. 21<t>You turn on me ruthlessly;</t> <t>with the might of your hand you attack me.</t>
  22. 22<t>You snatch me up and drive me before the wind;</t> <t>you toss me about in the storm.</t>
  23. 23<t>I know you will bring me down to death,</t> <t>to the place appointed for all the living. <pb/></t>
  24. 24<t>“Surely no one lays a hand on a broken man</t> <t>when he cries for help in his distress.</t>
  25. 25<t>Have I not wept for those in trouble?</t> <t>Has not my soul grieved for the poor?</t>
  26. 26<t>Yet when I hoped for good, evil came;</t> <t>when I looked for light, then came darkness.</t>
  27. 27<t>The churning inside me never stops;</t> <t>days of suffering confront me.</t>
  28. 28<t>I go about blackened, but not by the sun;</t> <t>I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.</t>
  29. 29<t>I have become a brother of jackals,</t> <t>a companion of owls.</t>
  30. 30<t>My skin grows black and peels;</t> <t>my body burns with fever.</t>
  31. 31<t>My lyre is tuned to mourning,</t> <t>and my pipe to the sound of wailing.</t>