Job 30:1-11

Job’s Present Misery

30:1 “But now they mock me, those who are younger than I,

whose fathers I disdained too much

to put with my sheep dogs.

30:2 Moreover, the strength of their hands –

what use was it to me?

Men whose strength had perished;

30:3 gaunt with want and hunger,

they would gnaw the parched land,

in former time desolate and waste.

30:4 By the brush they would gather herbs from the salt marshes,

and the root of the broom tree was their food.

30:5 They were banished from the community –

people shouted at them

like they would shout at thieves –

30:6 so that they had to live

in the dry stream beds,

in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks.

30:7 They brayed like animals among the bushes

and were huddled together under the nettles.

30:8 Sons of senseless and nameless people,

they were driven out of the land with whips.

Job’s Indignities

30:9 “And now I have become their taunt song;

I have become a byword among them.

30:10 They detest me and maintain their distance;

they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

30:11 Because God has untied my tent cord and afflicted me,

people throw off all restraint in my presence.