Iyov (Job) 30
30
1“But now those younger than I
hold me in derision,
men whose fathers I wouldn’t even
have put with the dogs that guarded my sheep.
2What use to me was the strength in their hands?
All their vigor had left them.
3Worn out by want and hunger,
they gnaw the dry ground in the gloom
of waste and desolation.
4They pluck saltwort and bitter leaves;
these, with broom tree roots, are their food.
5They are driven away from society,
with men shouting after them as after a thief,
6to live in gullies and vadis,
in holes in the ground and caves in the rocks.
7Among the bushes they howl like beasts
and huddle among the nettles,
8irresponsible nobodies
driven from the land.
9“Now I have become their song;
yes, I am a byword with them.
10They loathe me, they stand aloof from me;
they don’t hesitate to spit in my face!
11For God has loosened my bowstring and humbled me;
they throw off restraint in my presence.
12At my right the street urchins attack,
pushing me from place to place,
besieging me with their ways of destruction,
13breaking up my path,
furthering my calamity —
even those who have no one to help them.
14They move in as through a wide gap;
amid the ruin they roll on in waves.
15Terrors tumble over me,
chasing my honor away like the wind;
my [hope of] salvation passes like a cloud.
16“So now my life is ebbing away,
days of grief have seized me.
17At night pain pierces me to the bone,
so that I never rest.
18My clothes are disfigured by the force [of my disease];
they choke me like the collar of my coat.
19[God] has thrown me into the mud;
I have become like dust and ashes.
20“I call out to you [God], but you don’t answer me;
I stand up to plead, but you just look at me.
21You have turned cruelly against me;
with your powerful hand you keep persecuting me.
22You snatch me up on the wind and make me ride it;
you toss me about in the tempest.
23For I know that you will bring me to death,
the house assigned to everyone living.
24“Surely [God] wouldn’t strike at a ruin,
if in one’s calamity one cried out to him for help.
25Didn’t I weep for those who were in trouble?
Didn’t I grieve for the needy?
26Yet when I hoped for good, what came was bad;
when I expected light, what came was darkness.
27My insides are in turmoil; they can’t find rest;
days of misery confront me.
28I go about in sunless gloom,
I rise in the assembly and cry for help.
29I have become a brother to jackals
and a companion of ostriches.
30My skin is black and falling off me,
and my bones are burning with heat.
31So my lyre is tuned for mourning,
my pipe to the voice of those who weep.
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Iyov (Job) 30: CJB
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