ኢዮብ 30

But now they laugh at me

¹But now they laugh at me, \q men younger than I am, \q whose fathers I would have refused \q to put with my sheepdogs. ²What use to me was the strength of their hands, \q men whose vigor was gone? ³Gaunt with want and hunger, \q they gnawed the dry ground, \q in the gloom of waste and desolation.^{a 4}They pick salt plants among the bushes, \q and the roots of the broom tree are their food.^{b 5}They are driven out from human company; \q people shout after them as after a thief. ⁶They have to live on the slopes of the dry ravines, \q in holes in the ground and among the rocks. ⁷They bray among the bushes \q and huddle together under the nettles. ⁸A senseless and nameless brood, \q they were driven out of the land with whips. ⁹And now I have become their mocking song; \q I have become a byword among them. ¹⁰They detest me and keep their distance from me; \q they do not hesitate to spit in my face. ¹¹Because God has loosened my bowstring and humbled me, \q they have thrown off all restraint in my presence.^{cd 12}On my right the rabble rises up; \q they trip up my feet \q and build their siege ramps of ruin against me. ¹³They break up my path; \q they help my destruction along, \q and no one holds them back.^{e 14}They come in as through a wide breach in the wall; \q amid the crash of ruins they roll on. ¹⁵Terrors are turned against me; \q my honor is driven away as by the wind, \q and my safety has vanished like a cloud. ¹⁶And now my life is poured out within me; \q days of suffering have taken hold of me. ¹⁷At night my bones are pierced within me, \q and the pains that gnaw at me never rest. ¹⁸With great force my clothing is twisted out of shape; \q it binds me like the collar of my tunic.^{f 19}He has thrown me into the mud, \q and I have become like dust and ashes. ²⁰I cry to you for help, but you do not answer me; \q I stand up, and you merely look at me.^{g 21}You have turned cruel toward me; \q with the strength of your hand you attack me. ²²You lift me up on the wind and make me ride it; \q you toss me about in the roar of the storm.^{h 23}For I know that you will bring me to death, \q to the house appointed for all the living. ²⁴Yet does not someone in ruins stretch out a hand, \q and cry for help in his disaster?^{i 25}Did I not weep for those in trouble? \q Did I not grieve for the needy? ²⁶Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; \q when I waited for light, darkness came. ²⁷My insides churn and are never still; \q days of suffering confront me. ²⁸I go about blackened, but not by the sun; \q I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.^{j 29}I have become a brother to jackals \q and a companion to ostriches. ³⁰My skin turns black and peels from me, \q and my bones burn with fever. ³¹My lyre is tuned to mourning, \q and my flute to the sound of weeping.