Job 30

1But now those younger than I laugh at me, whose fathers I refused to set with the dogs of my flock.

2Even the strength of their hands—what is it to me? Their vigor has perished.

3Through want and hunger they are gaunt, gnawing the dry ground in the night of desolation and waste.

4who pluck salt plants among the bushes, and broom roots are their food.

5They are driven out from society; people shout after them as after a thief.

6They dwell in the ravines of dry streambeds, in holes in the ground and among the rocks.

7Among the bushes they bray; under thorny plants they are gathered together.

8Sons of fools, indeed sons without a name, were beaten out of the land.

9And now I have become their song, and I am a byword to them.

10They abhor me; they keep far from me, and they do not hold back from spitting in my face.

11Because he has loosened his cord and afflicted me, they have cast off restraint before me.

12On my right, the rabble rises up; they force my feet away, and they cast up their roads of disaster against me.

13They tear up my path; they further my ruin—there is no helper for them.

14They come through a wide breach; amid the devastation they roll on.

15Terrors are turned against me; they chase my dignity away like the wind, and my deliverance passes away like a cloud.

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

17At night my bones are pierced within me, and my gnawing pains do not rest.

18With great force my garment is distorted; it binds me like the opening of my tunic.

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

20I cry out to you, but you do not answer me; I stand, and you look at me.

21You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you attack me.

22You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it, and you make me melt away in the storm.

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

24Yet does not one amid ruins stretch out a hand, or cry for help in disaster?

25Did I not weep for someone in hard times? Was I not grieved for the poor?

26For I hoped for good, but trouble came; I waited for light, but darkness came.

27My insides boil and do not rest; days of affliction have come upon me.

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

29I have become a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.

30My skin has turned black on me, and my bones burn with heat.

31So my lyre has become mourning, and my pipe the sound of those who weep.