Job 30:1-15

New International Reader's Version

30 “But now those who are younger than I am make fun of me.
    I wouldn’t even put their parents with my sheep dogs!
² Their strong hands couldn’t give me any help.
    That’s because their strength was gone.
³ They were weak because they were needy and hungry.
    They wandered through dry and empty deserts at night.
⁴ Among the bushes they gathered salty plants.
    They ate the roots of desert bushes.
⁵ They were driven away from human society.
    They were shouted at as if they were robbers.
⁶ They were forced to live in dry stream beds.
    They had to stay among rocks
    and in holes in the ground.
⁷ Like donkeys they cried out among the bushes.
    There they crowded together and hid.
⁸ They were so foolish that no one respected them.
    They were driven out of the land.

⁹ “Now their children laugh at me.
    They make fun of me with their songs.
¹⁰ They hate me. They stay away from me.
    They even dare to spit in my face.
¹¹ God has made my body weak.
    It’s like a tent that has fallen down.
    So those children do what they want to in front of me.
¹² Many people attack me on my right side.
    They lay traps for my feet.
    They come at me from every direction.
¹³ They tear up the road I walk on.
    They succeed in destroying me.
    They say, ‘No one can help him.’
¹⁴ They attack me like troops smashing through a wall.
    Among the destroyed buildings they come rolling in.
¹⁵ Terrors sweep over me.
    My honor is driven away as if by the wind.
    My safety vanishes like a cloud.