Job’s Honor Turned to Contempt

1“But now they mock me,

men younger than I am,

whose fathers I would have refused

to put with my sheep dogs.

2What use to me was the strength of their hands,

since their vigor had left them?

3Gaunt from poverty and hunger,

they gnawed the dry land,

and the desolate wasteland by night.

4They plucked mallow among the shrubs,

and the roots of the broom tree were their food.a

5They were banished from among men,

shouted at like thieves,

6so that they lived on the slopes of the wadis,

among the rocks and in holes in the ground.

7They cried out among the shrubs

and huddled beneath the nettles.

8A senseless and nameless brood,

they were driven off the land.

9And now they mock me in song;

I have become a byword among them.

10They abhor me and keep far from me;

they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

11Because God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me,

they have cast off restraintb in my presence.

12The rabble arises at my right;

they lay snares for my feet

and build siege ramps against me.

13They tear up my path;

they profit from my destruction,

with no one to restrain them.c

14They advance as through a wide breach;

through the ruins they keep rolling in.

Job’s Prosperity Becomes Calamity

15Terrors are turned loose against me;

they drive away my dignity as by the wind,

and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.

16And now my soul is poured out within me;

days of affliction grip me.

17Night pierces my bones,

and my gnawing pains never rest.

18With great force He grasps my garment;d

He seizes me by the collar of my tunic.

19He throws me into the mud,

and I have become like dust and ashes.

20I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer;

when I stand up, You merely look at me.

21You have ruthlessly turned on me;

You oppose me with Your strong hand.

22You snatch me up into the wind

and drive me before it;

You toss me aboute in the storm.

23Yes, I know that You will bring me down to death,

to the place appointed for all the living.

24Yet no one stretches out his hand against a ruined man

when he cries for help in his distress.

25Have I not wept for those in trouble?

Has my soul not grieved for the needy?

26But when I hoped for good, evil came;

when I looked for light, darkness fell.

27I am churning within and cannot rest;

days of affliction confront me.

28I go about blackened, but not by the sun.

I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

29I have become a brother of jackals,f

a companion of ostriches.g

30My skin grows black and peels,

and my bones burn with fever.

31My harp is tuned to mourning

and my flute to the sound of weeping.