Job 30:1-15

1“But now they mock me, men younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs.

2Of what use was the strength of their hands to me, since their vigor had gone from them?

3Haggard from want and hunger, they roamed Or gnawed the parched land in desolate wastelands at night.

4In the brush they gathered salt herbs, and their food Or fuel was the root of the broom bush.

5They were banished from human society, shouted at as if they were thieves.

6They were forced to live in the dry stream beds, among the rocks and in holes in the ground.

7They brayed among the bushes and huddled in the undergrowth.

8A base and nameless brood, they were driven out of the land.

9“And now those young men mock me in song; I have become a byword among them.

10They detest me and keep their distance; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

11Now that God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they throw off restraint in my presence.

12On my right the tribe The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain. attacks; they lay snares for my feet, they build their siege ramps against me.

13They break up my road; they succeed in destroying me. ‘No one can help him,’ they say.

14They advance as through a gaping breach; amid the ruins they come rolling in.

15Terrors overwhelm me; my dignity is driven away as by the wind, my safety vanishes like a cloud.