Job 30:1-14

Job Bewails His Present Affliction

30¹ "But now they make sport of me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock. ² What could I gain from the strength of their hands, men whose vigor is gone? ³ Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry and desolate ground; ⁴ they pick mallow and the leaves of bushes, and to warm themselves the roots of the broom. ⁵ They are driven out from among men; they shout after them as after a thief. ⁶ In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks. ⁷ Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they huddle together. ⁸ A senseless, a disreputable brood, they have been whipped out of the land. ⁹ "And now I have become their song, I am a byword to them. ¹⁰ They abhor me, they keep aloof from me; they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me. ¹¹ Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me, they have cast off restraint in my presence. ¹² On my right hand the rabble rise, they drive me forth, they cast up against me their ways of destruction. ¹³ They break up my path, they promote my calamity; no one restrains them. ¹⁴ As through a wide breach they come; amid the crash they roll on.