Job 30

Tree of Life Version

30 “But now they mock me—those younger than me,
whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs.
² Moreover, what use was the strength of their hands to me,
    since their vigor has gone from them.
³ Haggard from want and hunger,
    they gnaw the parched land,
    in former time desolate and waste.
⁴ In the brush they pluck salt herbs,
    and their food was from the root of the broom tree.
⁵ They were banished from society,
    shouted at as if they were thieves,
⁶ so they were forced to dwell in wadis,
    in holes of the earth and among the rocks.
⁷ They brayed among the bushes
    and huddled under the nettles.
⁸ A senseless and nameless brood,
    they were cast out from the land.
⁹ “So now I have become their taunt song;
    I have become a byword to them.
¹⁰ They despise me;
    they keep their distance from me;
    they do not hesitate to spit in my face.
¹¹ Because He has loosened my cord and afflicted me,
they have cast off restraint in my presence
¹² On my right the rabble rise up;
    they entangle my feet
    and build up their destructive paths against me.
¹³ They break up my path;
    they succeed in destroying me without anyone helping them.
¹⁴ As through a wide breach they come;
    amid the ruins they come rolling in.
¹⁵ Terrors are turned on me;
    they chase away my honor like the wind,
    and like a cloud my deliverance vanishes.
¹⁶ “And now my soul is poured out within me;
    days of suffering have taken hold of me.
¹⁷ Night pierces my bones within me;
    my gnawing pains never rest.
¹⁸ By great power He seizes my garment;
    He binds me like the collar of my tunic.
¹⁹ He has cast me into the mud,
    and I have become like dust and ashes.