Job’s Present Misery
30:1 “But now they mock me, those who are younger than I,
whose fathers I disdained too much
to put with my sheep dogs.
30:2 Moreover, the strength of their hands –
what use was it to me?
Men whose strength had perished;
30:3 gaunt with want and hunger,
they would gnaw the parched land,
in former time desolate and waste.
30:4 By the brush they would gather herbs from the salt marshes,
and the root of the broom tree was their food.
30:5 They were banished from the community –
people shouted at them
like they would shout at thieves –
30:6 so that they had to live
in the dry stream beds,
in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks.
30:7 They brayed like animals among the bushes
and were huddled together under the nettles.
30:8 Sons of senseless and nameless people,
they were driven out of the land with whips.
Job’s Indignities
30:9 “And now I have become their taunt song;
I have become a byword among them.
30:10 They detest me and maintain their distance;
they do not hesitate to spit in my face.
30:11 Because God has untied my tent cord and afflicted me,
people throw off all restraint in my presence.
30:12 On my right the young rabble rise up;
they drive me from place to place,
and build up siege ramps against me.
30:13 They destroy my path;
they succeed in destroying me
without anyone assisting them.
30:14 They come in as through a wide breach;
amid the crash they come rolling in.
30:15 Terrors are turned loose on me;
they drive away my honor like the wind,
and like a cloud my deliverance has passed away.
Job’s Despondency
30:16 “And now my soul pours itself out within me;
days of suffering take hold of me.
30:17 Night pierces my bones;
my gnawing pains never cease.
30:18 With great power God grasps my clothing;
he binds me like the collar of my tunic.
30:19 He has flung me into the mud,
and I have come to resemble dust and ashes.
30:20 I cry out to you, but you do not answer me;
I stand up, and you only look at me.
30:21 You have become cruel to me;
with the strength of your hand you attack me.
30:22 You pick me up on the wind and make me ride on it;
you toss me about in the storm.
30:23 I know that you are bringing me to death,
to the meeting place for all the living.
The Contrast With the Past
30:24 “Surely one does not stretch out his hand
against a broken man
when he cries for help in his distress.
30:25 Have I not wept for the unfortunate?
Was not my soul grieved for the poor?
30:26 But when I hoped for good, trouble came;
when I expected light, then darkness came.
30:27 My heart is in turmoil unceasingly;
the days of my affliction confront me.
30:28 I go about blackened, but not by the sun;
in the assembly I stand up and cry for help.
30:29 I have become a brother to jackals
and a companion of ostriches.
30:30 My skin has turned dark on me;
my body is hot with fever.
30:31 My harp is used for mourning
and my flute for the sound of weeping.

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