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Job’s Present State Is Humiliating

30 “But now those younger than I mock and laugh at me,
Whose fathers I refused to put with the sheepdogs of my flock.

“Indeed, how could the strength of their hands profit me?
Vigor had perished from them.

“They are gaunt with want and famine;
They gnaw the dry and barren ground by night in [the gloom of] waste and desolation.

“They pluck [and eat] [a]saltwort (mallows) among the bushes,
And their food is the root of the broom shrub.

“They are driven from the community;
They shout after them as after a thief.

“They must dwell on the slopes of [b]wadis
And in holes in the ground and in rocks.

“Among the bushes they cry out [like wild animals];
Beneath the prickly scrub they gather and huddle together.

They are the sons of [worthless and nameless] fools,
They have been driven out of the land.


“And now I have become [the subject of] their taunting;
Yes, I am a [c]byword and a laughingstock to them.
10 
“They hate me, they stand aloof from me,
And do not refrain from spitting in my face.
11 
“For God has loosed His bowstring [attacking me] and [He has] afflicted and humbled me;
They have cast off the bridle [of restraint] before me.
12 
“On my right the [rabble] brood rises;
They push my feet away, and they build up their ways of destruction against me [like an advancing army].
13 
“They break up and clutter my path [upsetting my plans],
They profit from my destruction;
No one restrains them.
14 
“As through a wide breach they come,
Amid the crash [of falling walls] they roll on [over me].
15 
“Terrors are turned upon me;
They chase away my honor and reputation like the wind,
And my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.

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Footnotes

  1. Job 30:4 I.e. a plant of the salt marshes.
  2. Job 30:6 I.e. gullies or valleys made by torrents of water.
  3. Job 30:9 I.e. the object of cruel jokes.

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