301 “But now those who are younger than I have me in derision,
whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs. 2 Of what use is the strength of their hands to me,
men in whom ripe age has perished? 3 They are gaunt from lack and famine.
They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation. 4 They pluck salt herbs by the bushes.
The roots of the broom are their food. 5 They are driven out from the midst of men.
They cry after them as after a thief; 6 So that they dwell in frightful valleys,
and in holes of the earth and of the rocks. 7 Among the bushes they bray;
and under the nettles they are gathered together. 8 They are children of fools, yes, children of base men.
They were flogged out of the land. 9 “Now I have become their song.
Yes, I am a byword to them. 10 They abhor me, they stand aloof from me,
and don’t hesitate to spit in my face. 11 For he has untied his cord, and afflicted me;
and they have thrown off restraint before me. 12 On my right hand rise the rabble.
They thrust aside my feet,
They cast up against me their ways of destruction. 13 They mar my path,
They set forward my calamity,
without anyone’s help. 14 As through a wide breach they come,
in the midst of the ruin they roll themselves in.
15 Terrors have turned on me.
They chase my honor as the wind.
My welfare has passed away as a cloud. 16 “Now my soul is poured out within me.
Days of affliction have taken hold on me. 17 In the night season my bones are pierced in me,
and the pains that gnaw me take no rest. 18 By great force is my garment disfigured.
It binds me about as the collar of my coat. 19 He has cast me into the mire.
I have become like dust and ashes. 20 I cry to you, and you do not answer me.
I stand up, and you gaze at me. 21 You have turned to be cruel to me.
With the might of your hand you persecute me. 22 You lift me up to the wind, and drive me with it.
You dissolve me in the storm. 23 For I know that you will bring me to death,
To the house appointed for all living. 24 “However doesn’t one stretch out a hand in his fall?
Or in his calamity therefore cry for help? 25 Didn’t I weep for him who was in trouble?
Wasn’t my soul grieved for the needy? 26 When I looked for good, then evil came;
When I waited for light, there came darkness. 27 My heart is troubled, and doesn’t rest.
Days of affliction have come on me. 28 I go mourning without the sun.
I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help. 29 I am a brother to jackals,
and a companion to ostriches. 30 My skin grows black and peels from me.
My bones are burned with heat. 31 Therefore my harp has turned to mourning,
and my pipe into the voice of those who weep.
31 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. 2 Job answered: 3 “Let the day perish in which I was born,
the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’ 4 Let that day be darkness.
Don’t let God from above seek for it,
neither let the light shine on it. 5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own.
Let a cloud dwell on it.
Let all that makes black the day terrify it. 6 As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it.
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year.
Let it not come into the number of the months. 7 Behold, let that night be barren.
Let no joyful voice come therein. 8 Let them curse it who curse the day,
who are ready to rouse up leviathan. 9 Let the stars of its twilight be dark.
Let it look for light, but have none,
neither let it see the eyelids of the morning, 10 because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb,
nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
11 “Why didn’t I die from the womb?
Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me? 12 Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breast, that I should suck? 13 For now should I have lain down and been quiet.
I should have slept, then I would have been at rest, 14 with kings and counselors of the earth,
who built up waste places for themselves; 15 or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver: 16 or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been,
as infants who never saw light. 17 There the wicked cease from troubling.
There the weary are at rest. 18 There the prisoners are at ease together.
They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster. 19 The small and the great are there.
The servant is free from his master.
20 “Why is light given to him who is in misery,
life to the bitter in soul, 21 Who long for death, but it doesn’t come;
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, 22 who rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad, when they can find the grave? 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid,
whom God has hedged in? 24 For my sighing comes before I eat.
My groanings are poured out like water. 25 For the thing which I fear comes on me,
That which I am afraid of comes to me. 26 I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest;
but trouble comes.”
