Job Bewails His Present Affliction

301 But now those who are younger than I make sport of me; those whose fathers I would not have put with the dogs of my flocks. 2 Of what use is the strength of their hands to me? all force is gone from them. 3 They are wasted for need of food, biting the dry earth; their only hope of life is in the waste land. 4 They are pulling off the salt leaves from the brushwood, and making a meal of roots. 5 They are sent out from among their townsmen, men are crying after them as thieves 6 They have to get a resting-place in the hollows of the valleys, in holes of the earth and rocks. 7 They make noises like asses among the brushwood; they get together under the thorns. 8 They are sons of shame, and of men without a name, who have been forced out of the land. 9 And now I have become their song, and I am a word of shame to them. 10 I am disgusting to them; they keep away from me, and put marks of shame on me. 11 For he has made loose the cord of my bow, and put me to shame; he has sent down my flag to the earth before me. 12 The lines of his men of war put themselves in order, and make high their ways of destruction against me: 13 They have made waste my roads, with a view to my destruction; his bowmen come round about me; 14 As through a wide broken place in the wall they come on, I am overturned by the shock of their attack.

15 Fears have come on me; my hope is gone like the wind, and my well-being like a cloud. 16 But now my soul is turned to water in me, days of trouble overtake me: 17 The flesh is gone from my bones, and they give me no rest; there is no end to my pains. 18 With great force he takes a grip of my clothing, pulling me by the neck of my coat. 19 Truly God has made me low, even to the earth, and I have become like dust. 20 You give no answer to my cry, and take no note of my prayer. 21 You have become cruel to me; the strength of your hand is hard on me. 22 Lifting me up, you make me go on the wings of the wind; I am broken up by the storm. 23 For I am certain that you will send me back to death, and to the meeting-place ordered for all living. 24 Has not my hand been stretched out in help to the poor? have I not been a saviour to him in his trouble? 25 Have I not been weeping for the crushed? and was not my soul sad for him who was in need? 26 For I was looking for good, and evil came; I was waiting for light, and it became dark. 27 My feelings are strongly moved, and give me no rest; days of trouble have overtaken me. 28 I go about in dark clothing, uncomforted; I get up in the public place, crying out for help. 29 I have become a brother to the jackals, and go about in the company of ostriches. 30 My skin is black and dropping off me; and my bones are burning with the heat of my disease. 31 And my music has been turned to sorrow, and the sound of my pipe into the noise of weeping.

Job Bewails His Birth

31 Then, opening his mouth, and cursing the day of his birth, 2 Job made answer and said, 3 Let destruction take the day of my birth, and the night on which it was said, A man child has come into the world. 4 That day—let it be dark; let not God take note of it from on high, and let not the light be shining on it; 5 Let the dark and the black night take it for themselves; let it be covered with a cloud; let the dark shades of day send fear on it. 6 That night—let the thick dark take it; let it not have joy among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. 7 As for that night, let it have no fruit; let no voice of joy be sounded in it; 8 Let it be cursed by those who put a curse on the day; who are ready to make Leviathan awake. 9 Let its morning stars be dark; let it be looking for light, but may it not have any; let it not see the eyes of the dawn. 10 Because it did not keep the doors of my mother's body shut, so that trouble might be veiled from my eyes.

11 Why did death not take me when I came out of my mother's body, why did I not, when I came out, give up my last breath? 12 Why did the knees take me, or why the breasts that they might give me milk? 13 For then I might have gone to my rest in quiet, and in sleep have been in peace, 14 With kings and the wise ones of the earth, who put up great houses for themselves; 15 Or with rulers who had gold, and whose houses were full of silver; 16 Or as a child dead at birth I might never have come into existence; like young children who have not seen the light. 17 There the passions of the evil are over, and those whose strength has come to an end have rest. 18 There the prisoners are at peace together; the voice of the overseer comes not again to their ears. 19 The small and the great are there, and the servant is free from his master.

20 Why does he give light to him who is in trouble, and life to the bitter in soul; 21 To those whose desire is for death, but it comes not; who are searching for it more than for secret wealth; 22 Who are glad with great joy, and full of delight when they come to their last resting-place; 23 To a man whose way is veiled, and who is shut in by God? 24 In place of my food I have grief, and cries of sorrow come from me like water. 25 For I have a fear and it comes on me, and my heart is greatly troubled. 26 I have no peace, no quiet, and no rest; nothing but pain comes on me.