Job 30  Common English Bible

30 But now those younger than I mock me,
    whose fathers I refused to put beside my sheepdogs.
² Their strength, what’s it to me,
    their energy having perished?
³ Stiff from want and hunger,
    those who gnaw dry ground,
    yesterday’s desolate waste,
⁴     who pluck off the leaves on a bush,
    the root of the broom—
    a shrub is their food.
⁵ People banish them from society,
        shout at them as if to a thief;
⁶     so they live in scary ravines,
        holes in the ground and rocks.
⁷ Among shrubs, they make sounds like donkeys;
    they are huddled together under a bush,
⁸     children of fools and the nameless,
        whipped out of the land.

⁹ And now I’m their song;
    I’m their cliché!
¹⁰ They detest me, keep their distance,
    don’t withhold spit from my face.
¹¹ Because he loosened my bowstring and afflicted me,
    they throw off restraint in my presence.
¹² On the right, upstarts^[a] rise and target my feet,
    build their siege ramps against me,
¹³     destroy my road, profit from my fall,
        with no help.
¹⁴ They advance as if through a destroyed wall;^[b]
    they roll along beneath the ruin.
¹⁵ Terrors crash upon me;
    they sweep away my honor like wind;
        my safety disappears like a cloud.

¹⁶ Now my life is poured out on me;
    days of misery have seized me.
¹⁷ At night he bores my bones;
    my gnawing pain won’t rest.
¹⁸ With great force he grasps^[c] my clothing;^[d]
    it binds me like the neck of my shirt.
¹⁹ He hurls me into mud;
    I’m a cliché, like dust and ashes.
²⁰ I cry to you, and you don’t answer;
    I stand up, but you just look at me.
²¹ You are cruel to me,
    attack me with the strength of your hand.
²² You lift me to the wind and make me ride;
    you melt me in its roar.
²³ I know you will return me to death,
    the house appointed for all the living.

²⁴ Surely he won’t strike someone in ruins
        if in distress he cries out to him,
²⁵     if I didn’t weep for those who have a difficult day
        or my soul grieve for the needy;
²⁶     for I awaited good, but evil came;
        I expected light, but gloom arrived.
²⁷ My insides, churning, are never quiet;
    days of affliction confront me.
²⁸ I walk in the dark, lacking sunshine;
    I rise in the assembly and cry out.
²⁹ I have become a brother to jackals,
    a companion to young ostriches.
³⁰ My skin is charred;
    my bones are scorched by the heat.
³¹ My lyre is for mourning,
    my flute, a weeping sound.