Job 30:1-13

Job Bewails His Present Affliction

30¹ "But now they laugh at 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 ground by night in waste and desolation; ⁴ they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes, and the roots of the broom tree for their food.[1] ⁵ They are driven out from human company; 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 nameless 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[2] in my presence. ¹² On my right hand the rabble rise; they push away my feet; they cast up against me their ways of destruction. ¹³ They break up my path; they promote my calamity; they need no one to help them.