Job 30 — The Holy Bible

The Present Seems Futile

“But now they laugh me to scorn,

Men younger than I, whose fathers I disdained;

Whom I did not deem worthy to be put

With the dogs of my pastures.

Indeed, what profit is the strength of their hands to me?

For them the full term of life was lost.

In want and famine, they are childless.

Yesterday they fled to a waterless desert in anguish and misery.

They are those who surround the noisy salt places,

Who have salty herbs for their food,

And who are also considered worthless

And deficient of every good thing,

And chew on the roots of trees because of their great hunger.

Thieves have risen up against me,

Whose houses were holes in the rocks,

Who cry out among the rustling bushes

And live under the wild shrubs.

They are the sons of fools and dishonored men,

Whose name and fame were extinguished from the earth.

“But now I am their lyre,

And they have me as their byword.

They detest me and keep their distance.

They do not hesitate to spit in my face.

For He has opened His quiver and afflicted me.

They have cast off restraint in my presence.

They rose up against me by the right hands of their offspring;

And they stretched out their foot

And directed against me their paths of destruction.

My paths are ruined, for they stripped off my garment.

He shot me down with His arrows

And used me as He wished.

I am overwhelmed with pains.

My pains are turned upon me.

My hope is gone like the wind

And my salvation like a cloud.

“Even now my soul will be poured forth upon me,

And the days of pains seize me.

By night my bones are set on fire,

And my sinews are broken up.

With great force He took hold of my garment,

And like the collar of my tunic He surrounded me.

You regarded me as clay in the earth,

And my portion is with ashes.

“I cry out to You, but You do not answer me.

They stood and observed me.

You attacked me without mercy

And scourged me with a strong hand.

You appointed pains for me

And cast me away from salvation.

For I know death will destroy me,

For the earth is the house for every mortal.

“Would that I might lay hands on myself,

Or at least ask another, and he would do it for me.

Yet I wept over every man without strength

And groaned when I saw a man in distress.

But while I held firmly to good things,

Days of evils happened to me instead.

My stomach churns and will not be quiet,

And days of poverty have come upon me.

I go groaning without restraint;

I stand up and cry out in the church.

I have become a brother of sirens

And a companion of sparrows.

My skin has been greatly darkened,

And my bones are burned by the heat.

My lyre turned into mourning

And my song into my weeping.