Job’s Honor Turned into Contempt
1 “But now those who are younger than I mock me,
whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs.
2 Of what use is the strength of their hands to me,
men in whom ripe age has perished?
3 They are gaunt from lack and famine.
They gnaw the dry ground,
in the gloom of waste and desolation.
4 They pluck salt herbs by the bushes.
The roots of the broom tree are their food.
5 They are driven out from among men.
They cry after them as after a thief,
6 so that they dwell in frightful valleys
and in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
7 They bray among the bushes.
They are gathered together under the nettles.
8 They are children of fools, yes, children of wicked men.
They were flogged out of the land.
9 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 hesitate to spit in my face.
11 For he has untied his cord and afflicted me,
and they have thrown off restraint before me.
12 On my right hand rise the rabble.
They thrust aside my feet.
They cast up against me their ways of destruction.
13 They mar my path.
They promote my destruction
without anyone’s help.
14 As through a wide breach, they come.
They roll themselves in amid the ruin.
15 Terrors have turned on me.
They chase my honor like the wind.
My welfare has passed away like a cloud.
16 Now my soul is poured out within me.
Days of affliction have taken hold of me.
17 In the night season my bones are pierced in me,
and the pains that gnaw me take no rest.
18 My garment is disfigured by great force.
It binds me about as the collar of my tunic.
19 He has cast me into the mire.
I have become like dust and ashes.
20 I cry to you, and you do not answer me.
I stand up, and you gaze at me.
21 You have turned to be cruel to me.
With the might of your hand you persecute me.
22 You lift me up to the wind and drive me with it.
You dissolve me in the storm.
23 For I know that you will bring me to death,
To the house appointed for all living.
24 However does one not stretch out a hand when he falls?
Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?
25 Did I not weep for him who was in trouble?
Was I not grieved for the needy?
26 When I looked for good, then evil came.
When I waited for light, darkness came.
27 My heart is troubled and does not rest.
Days of affliction have come on me.
28 I go mourning without the sun.
I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
29 I am a brother to jackals
and a companion to ostriches.
30 My skin grows black and peels from me.
My bones are burned with heat.
31 Therefore my harp has turned to mourning
and my pipe into the voice of those who weep.”