Job 30

^{Job 30:1} “But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to entrust with my sheep dogs.

^{Job 30:2} What use to me was the strength of their hands, since their vigor had left them?

^{Job 30:3} Gaunt from poverty and hunger, they gnawed the dry land, and the desolate wasteland by night.

^{Job 30:4} They plucked mallow among the shrubs, and the roots of the broom tree were their food.

^{Job 30:5} They were banished from among men, shouted down like thieves,

^{Job 30:6} so that they lived on the slopes of the wadis, among the rocks and in holes in the ground.

^{Job 30:7} They cried out among the shrubs and huddled beneath the nettles.

^{Job 30:8} A senseless and nameless brood, they were driven off the land.

^{Job 30:9} And now they mock me in song; I have become a byword among them.

^{Job 30:10} They abhor me and keep far from me; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

^{Job 30:11} Because God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.

^{Job 30:12} The rabble arises at my right; they lay snares for my feet and build siege ramps against me.

^{Job 30:13} They tear up my path; they profit from my destruction, with no one to restrain them.

^{Job 30:14} They advance as through a wide breach; through the ruins they keep rolling in.

^{Job 30:15} Terrors are turned loose against me; they drive away my dignity as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.

^{Job 30:16} And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction grip me.

^{Job 30:17} Night pierces my bones, and my gnawing pains never rest.

^{Job 30:18} With great force He grasps my garment; He seizes me by the collar of my tunic.

^{Job 30:19} He throws me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ashes.

^{Job 30:20} I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer; when I stand up, You merely look at me.

^{Job 30:21} You have ruthlessly turned on me; You oppose me with Your strong hand.

^{Job 30:22} You snatch me up into the wind and drive me before it; You toss me about in the storm.

^{Job 30:23} Yes, I know that You will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.

^{Job 30:24} Yet no one stretches out his hand to a ruined man when he cries for help in his distress.

^{Job 30:25} Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has my soul not grieved for the needy?

^{Job 30:26} But when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, darkness fell.

^{Job 30:27} I am churning within and cannot rest; days of affliction confront me.

^{Job 30:28} I go about blackened, but not by the sun. I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

^{Job 30:29} I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of ostriches.

^{Job 30:30} My skin grows black and peels, and my bones burn with fever.

^{Job 30:31} My harp is tuned to mourning and my flute to the sound of weeping.