Job 30:1-15

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

30 But now they who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.

² Yes, how could the strength of their hands profit me? They were men whose ripe age and vigor had perished.

³ They are gaunt with want and famine; they gnaw the dry and barren ground or flee into the wilderness, into the gloom of wasteness and desolation.

⁴ They pluck saltwort or mallows among the bushes, and roots of the broom for their food or to warm them.

⁵ They are driven from among men, who shout after them as after a thief.

⁶ They must dwell in the clefts of frightful valleys (gullies made by torrents) and in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

⁷ Among the bushes they bray and howl [like wild animals]; beneath the prickly scrub they fling themselves and huddle together.

⁸ Sons of the worthless and nameless, they have been scourged and crushed out of the land.

⁹ And now I have become their song; yes, I am a byword to them.

¹⁰ They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and do not refrain from spitting in my face or at the sight of me.

¹¹ For God has loosed my bowstring and afflicted and humbled me; they have cast off the bridle [of restraint] before me.

¹² On my right hand rises the rabble brood; they jostle me and push away my feet, and they cast up against me their ways of destruction [like an advancing army].

¹³ They break up and clutter my path [embarrassing my plans]; they urge on my calamity, even though they have no helper [and are themselves helpless].

¹⁴ As through a wide breach they come in; amid the crash [of falling walls] they roll themselves upon me.

¹⁵ Terrors are turned upon me; my honor and reputation they chase away like the wind, and my welfare has passed away as a cloud.