Job 30 (ARST) · Opened

1“But now, men who are younger than I am make fun of me. They are men whose fathers I would not even have hired to help my dogs guard my sheep!“But now they mock me, men younger than I am, whose fathers I would have refused to put with my sheep dogs.

2And I would not hire any of those young men to work for me either. They are already feeble.What use to me was the strength of their hands, since their vigor had left them?

3{ No one hires them,} so they are poor and go hungry and have become thin. They have to eat roots that they find in places where no crops have grown for a long time.Gaunt from poverty and hunger, they gnawed the dry land, and the desolate wasteland by night.

4They look among bushes to find leaves that they can eat. They pull up broom trees and eat their roots.They plucked mallow among the shrubs, and the roots of the broom tree were their food.

5{ When they come near villages,} people shout at them, as they would at a thief, to make them leave their area.They were banished from among men, shouted at like thieves,

6They have to live in riverbeds, in holes in the ground, and in caves on the sides of cliffs.so that they lived on the slopes of the wadis, among the rocks and in holes in the ground.

7{ During the day} they huddle under thorn bushes. There they howl like animals because they are so hungry.They cried out among the shrubs and huddled beneath the nettles.

8They are people without good sense, and they have never achieved anything significant. People force them to leave their towns.A senseless and nameless brood, they were driven off the land.

9But these despicable young men sing songs to make fun of me! If they think God is punishing someone for being a sinner, they call that person‘another Job.’And now they mock me in song; I have become a byword among them.

10They hate me and they stay away from me, but if we happen to meet, they spit right in my face.They abhor me and keep far from me; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

11I am not able to defend myself against these young men, because God has taken away my strength. He has humiliated me. So they can do whatever they want to me.Because God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.

12Gangs of these young men threaten me. They shove me aside when they pass by. They think of new ways to hurt me.The rabble arises at my right; they lay snares for my feet and build siege ramps against me.

13I am not able to escape from them, even as they keep doing worse things to me. No one else would do the things they do to me.They tear up my path; they profit from my destruction, with no one to restrain them.

14It is as if I were a city and they were an army that had broken through its wall and sent in waves of troops to destroy the city.They advance as through a wide breach; through the ruins they keep rolling in.

15I am afraid of many things. I have no dignity left, and I do not expect that I will ever get out of this situation.Terrors are turned loose against me; they drive away my dignity as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.

16I feel as if I am about to die, but in the meantime, I am suffering greatly.And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction grip me.

17My body aches during the night. I feel pain continually.Night pierces my bones, and my gnawing pains never rest.

18I have such a serious disease that my skin no longer looks the same. It seems as if I will always be sick.With great force He grasps my garment; He seizes me by the collar of my tunic.

19God has made me suffer so much that I have been sitting here on the ground. I am even beginning to look like the dust and ashes in which I have been sitting.He throws me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ashes.

20Even though I pray to you, God, you do not respond. I try to get your attention, but you do not do anything to help me.I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer; when I stand up, You merely look at me.

21You used to be kind to me, but you are not kind to me anymore. You are using your mighty power to make me suffer.You have ruthlessly turned on me; You oppose me with Your strong hand.

22It is as if you have sent a great wind to pick me up and carry me away. It is as if you are making a violent storm blow me around.You snatch me up into the wind and drive me before it; You toss me about in the storm.

23Certainly I know that you are going to make me die. That is what happens to everyone who ever lives.Yes, I know that You will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.

24However, when someone falls down, he certainly reaches out with his hand for help. When someone is in trouble, he certainly calls for help.Yet no one stretches out his hand against a ruined man when he cries for help in his distress.

25{ So it is appropriate for me to ask for your help now, God.} After all, I wept for people myself when they were experiencing troubles. I felt sorry for poor people.Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has my soul not grieved for the needy?

26I am asking for help because although I expected good things to happen to me, evil things happened instead. It was as if I was waiting for dawn but another night started instead of a new day.But when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, darkness fell.

27I am very distressed all the time. I suffer during every day.I am churning within and cannot rest; days of affliction confront me.

28I look as if I have to work outside all day to make a living. I humble myself by pleading openly for people to help me.I go about blackened, but not by the sun. I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

29{ No one wants to come near me.} It is as if I am a jackal or ostrich living out in the wilderness.I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of ostriches.

30My skin has become dark, and it is peeling off. I have a fever that causes my body to feel as if it were burning up.My skin grows black and peels, and my bones burn with fever.

31Previously, if you came to my house, you would hear musical instruments playing happy songs. If you came now, you would only hear people crying and singing sad songs.My harp is tuned to mourning and my flute to the sound of weeping.

Job 30

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Job 30

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